I Hate You
by qfd
Summary: Heard of Angry Birds, well meet Angry Sidney and his nemesis, a pretty punk rocker Violet & see what happens when the normally calm cool & collected Crosby gets his cage rattled by a no nonsense girl who tells it like it is
1. Chapter 1

_I hate you when you're gone  
>I hate you turn me on<br>I hate the way I need you when  
>I don't know where you are<br>I love it even more  
>When I find you on the floor<br>I know you think you hate me  
>But I will always hate you more<em>

(lyrics from 'I Hate You' Sick Puppies)

**Chapter 1**

"Whatthefuckisthat and she so better not be who you're trying to set me up with," Jordan hisses under his breath as he kicks off his shoes and Flower hands him a beer. I peek around the centreman's large frame to see what he's looking at and silently second his thoughts.

"She's a friend of Vero's and they've been like…," I can see Flower searching for the right word, the way he does when he rolls his eyes back in his head and purses his lips.

"Friends, lovers…wait if they're lezzin it out do we get to watch?" Jordan asks hopefully.

"I thought you just said you wanted no part of that?" Max asks, pushing Jordy out of the way, taking a beer and striding past Marc. I shake my head. It doesn't matter what the girl lookes like, if she has boobs and a vagina, Max is in.

"Better him than me," Jordy shudders and again, I can only agree. Call me old fashioned but I like a woman to be fresh faced with long hair and preferably in a dress, although of course I have to admit to licking my lips when I see a shapely ass shoehorned into a pair of tight jeans. But yeah, if I have to choose between Ginger and Mary Ann it's going to be Mary Ann every time. It's certainly not going to be Ruby Gloom over there. "Do you think that hurt?" Vero's the one admiring the full sleeve that the woman is sporting and again I'm left shuddering. I've had my fair share of needles from the team doc, mostly for freezing painful ankles and shoulders and you will not catch me paying out good money to have someone drag needles through my skin for any other reason. I know there are plenty of guys that I play with sporting ink but again, call me old fashioned but I think tats are something that's okay on men, just not on women. Not even those…what does Max call them? Oh yeah, tramp stamps.

"What about that ring through her eyebrow?" I ask, trying not to look directly at her. You know what they say about junk yard dogs. Just don't look them in the eye and you're fine. Maybe that's bears. I'm not sure. Either way, I'm trying to avoid catching her eye.

"Makes you wonder if she's got any anywhere else," Jordy grins and suddenly it's like he's decided he doesn't mind her short, spiked purple and black dyed hair or the tats and especially not the piercings and I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that he thinks her knee high laced up boots are cute too. Shaking my head I decide to find somewhere else to be and someone else to talk to but I'm not fast enough.

"Sidney! Come meet mon amie, Violet." Vero doesn't say it like I would. She says it like she would the colour in French, vee-o-lette. It makes the woman standing near her grin but in this soft way, like she thinks Vero is as cute as a fluffy little kitten, which is true. V is as fragile as a flower and as sweet as a sugar coated cupcake. I've often found myself envying Marc his girlfriend and one of these days is he doesn't make an honest woman out of her….

"Nice to meet you." I don't offer my hand. I don't really want to get to know this woman. We're not going to have anything in common and I can't see myself hanging out with her so I'm not going to put on my best solicitous smile and I'm not going to ask how she is. Don't care.

"So….this is him," she says, tipping her head to one side and regarding me like I'm some kind of impressionist art exhibit, "he's a lot smaller in person." You can hear the collective intake of breath around me and I wait for her to apologize, to say something like she didn't mean to say that out loud but she neither takes it back nor does she seem fazed by the fact that everyone in the room has stopped what they were doing and are currently staring at her, open mouthed. Finally Vero, red faced, literally reaches out and pinches her friend's arm. "What? He doesn't know that this whole team is made up of Lilliputians? C'mon V, next to say…I don't know, Boston, Philly, San Jose…they look like they should be singing Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

"I can show you something that would change your mind about that," Max grins lasciviously at her and she laughs and then everyone laughs, although nervously, and goes back to what they were doing. I leave her to Max. If that's the last I see of her I'm fine with that.

* * *

><p>"God you're right, he has no sense of 'ha ha' about himself at all does he?" I sigh as I follow Vero into the kitchen. She's still scandalized by my earlier comments about the team and their captain.<p>

"Oui, but must you say it out loud?" she hisses and aims a barbed glare my direction. Shrugging, I hold my hands out.

"You know me V. I call it like I see it. I mean, seriously I can't believe that _no one_ has ever pointed that out to him. I can't be the first," I suggest to which she shrugs one shoulder as she reaches for a box of crackers which she begins to shake out onto a big white ceramic platter. "I thought you said that they didn't want their egos stroked. The looks on their faces," I shake my head as I offer to take the plate, "they all looked like I'd just kicked their damn Chihuahua. "

"Non, what _I _said was they'd be glad if you don't try to sleep with them as soon as you meet them, I didn't say to kick them dans les écrous," she snaps, looking harried as she balances a bowl of dip on the platter I'm holding.

"Ah, well you could have fooled me. Max has already offered to take me home, _twice_," I point out which makes her roll her eyes.

"I warned you about Max."

"You did and don't worry, that whole I'm the best you've ever had bébé is kind of gross," I shudder and she laughs. "Okay, I'll try and be nicer," I promise and she gives me a grateful smile. I know it's a big thing to be invited into her inner circle and that it required a pretty large leap of trust for Vero to invite me to one of one of her private parties. I'm just wishing that she'd warned me that these hockey stars had such fragile egos

I follow her back out to the table where everyone is picking at the finger foods she's set out and slide the platter I'm holding into an empty spot.

"That looks tasty," I steel my nerves, reminding myself that I've promised to behave as I look up into Max's green eyes, "of course not as tasty as you." He gives my cleavage a look that says he can't wait to play with my tits. Not that he'd _like to_ but like it's already a done deal and that it _will_ happen.

"Seriously?" I hiss, mostly under my breath and with a quick glance in Vero's direction to see if my immediately breaking my promise is going to be overheard. "Does that work for you on a regular basis?" Max stares back at me blankly as if suddenly he's lost the ability to comprehend the Queen's English or maybe he's just never been turned down before. Rolling my eyes I turn away from him and find myself staring right up into the sky blue eyes of Jordan Staal.

"Your eyes are…purple," he says, squinting at me like he can't believe what he's seeing. People do that. I'm used to it.

"They're contacts." I turn to the source of the voice dripping in disparagement. It's Sid, big surprise there.

"Actually they're not contacts. My eyes are blue, but under certain light they look, well, the name should have been a clue. Yep, me and Elizabeth Taylor," I reply caustically, aiming my venom towards Sid who stands there looking back at me with hate absolutely spilling out of his eyes. It's a good thing he's talented because he obviously preferrs women to fawn over him and if he was just some fourth line player that probably wouldn't happen, even with that totally kissable mouth.

"Well if they are real, then it's too bad about all those tats. Maybe people would notice them more if everything else about you wasn't so loud." I try, for about thirty seconds, not to be a total bitch and then I just give up.

"Wow…you really are small town vanilla pudding aren't you?" I watch him bite his own tongue and then lose the fight to keep his composure as the veins in his neck and forehead begin to throb.

"If I am, it's vanilla pudding you couldn't handle," he snarls back. I almost laugh but a dismayed sounding squeak behind me helps me to back off from threat level midnight.

"Oh I'm pretty sure I could," I grin malevolently at him and then turn and walk away.

* * *

><p>"You haven't eaten much," Vero observes as she takes my plate and brushes off the remnants of the salad and a few morsels of meat into the garbage before she drops the plate into the sudsy water in front of her.<p>

"I sort of lost my appetite," I explain with a meaningful look towards her friend who is clearly flirting with Jordan. She keeps putting her hand on his arm and giving him full eye contact as he talks and laughing uproariously every time he says something even a little funny. It makes me want to gag.

"She's a lot of fun if you get to know her," Marc's girlfriend suggests even more quietly, like she's expecting me to bite her head off, which I would never do. I don't like her friend but it doesn't make me think less of her.

"Maybe for you," I begin and see her tense, waiting for a tirade most likely; time to keep my opinions to myself. "She's just not my cup of tea," I add in a lighter, quieter tone, making sure to kiss her cheek before I turn to go.

"There's just one thing." I pause, two steps away and cringe. I don't know why but I just know I'm not going to like what she has to say next.

"Yeah?"

"I told her you'd drive her home. I don't like her on that bike when she's had a few," Vero adds in a high squeaky voice that says she's really afraid of what I'm going to say. I can't remember ever yelling at her but Marc has told me that she hates when I get in one of those moods where I'm so pissed that I can't even talk and I'm getting there, fast.

"Why me?" I ask with my teeth clenched. The thought of being in a confined space with that woman makes my skin crawl.

"You're new place is the closest to where she's staying." I notice she doesn't say her place, her home but I don't put in any effort in wondering what that means. "Anyone else would have to go out of their way," she adds with a hopeful tone, appealing to good Sidney, the chivalrous Sidney. It works. Of course it does. I need to learn to say no.

"Maybe she'll go home with Max and I won't have to worry about it," I mutter as I'm walking away.

"Wouldn't count on it," I hear Vero call after me.

* * *

><p>"Merci d'être venu, à bientôt!" Neither of us waves at the happy couple standing on the front step. It's pretty obvious neither of us is happy walking out of their house together. I look longingly at my rice burner sitting near their garage door. If it hadn't been for the fact that Jordan kept topping up my wine I'd argue that I'm fine to ride it home but I know I'm not. I almost asked if I could sleep over, I'd totally curl up on the pool table but after TK made sure I knew that Max had had sex with someone there I decided against it. Besides, I tell myself as I stand beside the passenger door of Sid's Land Rover, it's only a ten minute drive. I can handle charged silence that long.<p>

He doesn't walk around and hold the door open for me, I don't expect that but he also doesn't unlock the passenger door until he's settled, belted in, starts the vehicle and turns on the radio, just to make it crystal fucking clear how much he doesn't want to do this. As if I didn't already know. So I sit in the seat, I put my seat belt on and then I wave at Vero and Marc, because it's not their fault that Sidney Crosby is a dick.

"Don't pretend to be nice," he mutters half under his breath as he back out of their driveway. Oh…and I was gonna try and be nice, or at least silent, which in his case would have been the same thing.

"I _am_ nice, just not to you," I grin at him in that way that hopefully he clues in means he's better off keeping his mouth closed or this kitty will scratch.

"You're the one who started it," he snipes back. I barely stifle a laugh.

"Oh my gawd, you're seriously going to sit there and tell me that I actually offended you?" For a minute he stares straight ahead and then he reaches over and cranks up the radio indicating that our conversation is over. Shaking my head I sit back and stare out the passenger window, until it actually dawns on me that he's listening to country music. Now there's country and then there's country and western and whatever he's listening to has way too much banjo and fiddle in it for my taste. Normally in someone else's car, I'd ask, but considering he's being such a jerk I decide that I actually don't mind pissing him off some more so I reach over and change the radio station. As soon as I find the hard rock station I crank the volume.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He reaches over to change it back. I smack his hand away. He stare sat me like he's seriously considering how to murder me. I grin back at him. "This is my car," he reminds me in a low, and I'm guessing he thinks is a threatening manner.

"Yeah, clearly. As if I could afford this," I nod and then slide back in the seat so that I can put my boots up on the dash and tap them in time to the music. The way his whole face gets read, I'm wondering if he's going to have an aneurism. "Hey, wonder boy, eyes on the road." For a few, brief but remarkable moments he drives in silence, or as silent as the Theory of a Deadman cranked to ten will allow and then I feel his gaze boring into the side of my head. "What?" I ask in a high lilting voice as I turn to bat my eyelashes at him. He scowls and turns his eyes back to the road.

"Are you like this all the time or are you just doing this to piss me the fuck off?" he snarls as I watch his knuckles grow white as he squeezes the steering wheel hard enough that I wonder if it might actually come off in his hands or at the very least scream for mercy.

"A little of both," I shrug and then start singing along to my new favorite song, Lowlife. The nose of the SUV dives and then the entire vehicle swerves to the right and comes to a tire squealing sudden stop.

"Are you fucking _serious_?" he yells, and if he had the power of the Gorgon, I'd be a statue right now. Instead I just keep grinning at him because it seems to be working. "You're insane. You're a fucking freak!" He opens his mouth like he's going to say more and then he closes it again and just shakes his head, rolls the vehicle back onto the road and slowly accelerates.

"Sticks and stones," I laugh and start air drumming. "If you think that's the first time someone's called me names you're seriously mistaken and hell yeah, I'm a freak and you, mister Wonder Bread, could so not handle when I put my freak on," I add with a snort. I'm betting Mr. Vanilla Pudding has never done anything other than the missionary position in his life and he probably says please and thank you for a b.j. too. "This is the block. You can drop me off at the stop sign. I'll walk from here." I want out of the car, away from the rage that's coming off of the NHL's crown prince in waves and besides, I'm tired of the game and the red wine is beginning to hit me, making my head pound. The vehicle careens to a stop and I push the door open. I pause as one of my feet hits the pavement and I consider, just for a minute, being polite and thanking him for the ride but then my dark passenger whispers in my ear and I can't resist just one more jab. "Later tater," I call over my shoulder and then jump out of the car and starte skipping down the street. I hear him gun the engine, making it roar angrily behind me and lift my hand in a one finger salute.

* * *

><p>Freak. Bitch.<p>

I slam my fists against the steering wheel. I've met some crazy people, some scary stalker bitches and insane fans in my time but that woman takes the fucking cake. I take pride in being pretty calm and collected most of the time, of being able to keep my cool in some fucked up situations, or at least that's something I've been working on, but this woman aggravates the shit out of me.

And I fucking want her in the worst way.

If she was trying to get under my skin she fucking succeeded. It's like those tats of hers, like she's been dragging needles across my skin and now I'm sitting here, heated to the core. I'm sweating and thinking about her lips, about having her sassy, foul bitchy mouth wrapped around my dick and even with my eyes screwed shut I can't make that vision go away. I know she was baiting me with all that stuff about how I couldn't handle her but the more she talked about it, the more I started thinking about it and now I can't stop.

I'm thinking about showing her just unfuckingvanilla I can get as the Rover's wheels start squealing as I back it up and turn it down the street while imagining her calling out my name when I fuck her into a coma and she has to take back all that shit she said about me being boring and white bread.

She's just unlocking the door which is lucky because the street is dark, most of the inhabitants having long since gone to bed and if her curves had not been cast into stark relief against the light over the doorstep, I could have driven around the whole cul-de-sac and not known where she was. I'm pocketing my keys and halfway down the driveway before she can even get through the door. I have her pinned to the door before she even let out a squeak of surprise and my mouth is covering hers' by the time that she does.

I expect a slap or even a knee in the jewels but instead she grabs two fistfuls of my shirt and pulls me even harder against her, wraps one leg around the back of my knee and grinds herself against the evidence of my ardor. I grab her hand, slam the door and then, with our lips locked, walk her backwards into the darkened house.

Somehow we find a couch and I press her down into it or she pulls me down on top of her, it's hard to say which but either way we end up in a tangle of limbs both trying to undress the other one as our tongues fight for the upper hand. She's got a tongue stud. My cock gives a little pulse at the thought of that hardware rubbing against all of my most sensitive spots but that will have to be later. Right now I just want inside of her as soon as possible and thankfully she seems to agree as she scrambles out of her panties and tosses them aside as I push my jeans down over my hips and then neither of us even tries to get any more naked, she just lets me throw her legs over my shoulders and the, as she looks up at me with this look that's pure sex I slowly screw myself inside of her.

I think I'm going to go blind or my brain is going to implode or something. She's fucking tight and hot and wet and it feels so good but there's this buzzing in my ears as all of the blood rushes out of my brain and runs directly south. I feel light headed, dizzy and drunk and I know I've only had one beer.

"Jeeeezussss!" I hiss through clenched teeth as I bottom out inside of her, my full weight pressing her thighs back and giving me a deep, satisfying angle but now I'm scared to move. I'm afraid I'm going to cum like some kind of teenager getting lucky for the first time in his parents' basement. Speaking of which…. "Is this your place?" She laughs and then tightens her muscles around me, making me gasp.

"You're fucking me and you're worried whose house this is?" She laughs again and then reaches around to drag her nails up my back, not enough to hurt. Actually it kind of tickles.

"Suddenly worried about getting caught," I mumble, squeezing my eyes shut and rotating my hips while praying that I won't shoot my load.

"Well don't, I'm house sitting. Now shut up and fuck me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

I'm tugging up my jeans, thinking that I've just made a huge mistake and feeling guilty as hell. I can't help the fact that I have a conscience and that I've been brought up to treat women better than as a blow up doll, which is about the best definition I can come up with for what I just did. Even with the puck bunnies I've fucked, I've tried to at least give them a little foreplay, pretend to care if they got off or not. My brain isn't registering whether she did or not, which is partially why I'm concentrating so hard on getting my jeans on instead of watching her saunter across the room, leaving her panties on the floor as she heads to the kitchen.

"I'm hungry, you?" she calls over her shoulder. My stomach growls in reply which makes her laugh and makes me wish I'd eaten more at Marc and Vero's. I really want to make a quick exit, not hang around with her and try to make awkward small talk but my stomach has other ideas. I follow her into the kitchen just in time to see her swing herself up onto the counter, boots and all, minus her panties which are still on the living room floor. I open my mouth to say something about how clearly unsanitary it is but a little voice in my head warns me I'll be in for a mouthful if I do, so I keep my mouth shut.

"Captain Crunch?" she asks, holding out the opened box towards me and giving it a shake. "Oh, no wait, I forgot. You're one of those my body is my temple types that don't eat sugar, right?" she laughs and then reaches into the box, pulls out a handful of the sugar coated kids cereal and tosses it into her mouth. I glare at her and head for the fridge. "Yeah, you're not gonna find anything you're happy with in there either," she chortles and as hard as I look, she's right. Full fat milk, aerosol whip cream, whole milk ricotta, coffee creamer, left over Chinese food, pudding cups, real butter…. "Oh and before you ask," she adds with a smirk as I close the fridge door in disgust, "I don't have any of that bird seed bread either and the only peanut butter I have is the extra smooth stuff but there is a couple of kinds of Ben and Jerry's in the freezer but neither of them is frozen yogurt so I think you're shit outta luck." I must have this incredulous look on my face because she just starts laughing and keep laughing until, in sheer frustration, I grab the cereal box out of her hand and upend it into my mouth. When I look back at her she's still laughing.

"What?" I snap, hating that she's still looking smug.

"How many push-ups are you gonna have to do to work that off?" she asks, tipping her head to one said and intentionally staring at my chest and then letting her gaze slowly slide down to my stomach before she lazily slides her gaze back up until her eyes meet mine and there's nothing in her eyes that says she's expecting me to get down and give her twenty.

Of course I could be wrong about that.

She slides off of the counter and saunters slowly past me, close enough that her arm just brushes mine as she heads for the fridge. I watch her, my brain trying to fathom her thinking process, which Max tells me I should never try to do with a woman, but I do it anyway. She opens the fridge, reaches in, and then comes out with the aerosol whip cream and slowly starts to shake it.

"Care to work off some more calories?"

* * *

><p>I was going to regret it. I knew the minute my knees hit the ceramic tile floors that I was going to regret this, but I decided I was going to worry about that later. Much later, like after I made Sidney Crosby beg for release and then cry like a little girl. He'd already tried to beg off, when I pulled his limp Johnson from his jeans and slid it into my mouth. He'd looked down at me like I'd done something unspeakable, and then those caramel coloured eyes of his rolled back in his head and he'd groaned like a ten dollar whore. I like having a man soft in my mouth and knowing I have the power to make him granite hard in no time and I didn't mind licking my own juices off of his cock either, though I'd given it a good dose of whip cream first and took my time rolling his dick around in my mouth to lick it clean.<p>

As soon as he started to get hard he stopped whining about moving somewhere more comfortable or whatever it was he was winging on about. The only sound he made, once I was cradling his balls in one hand and slowly jerking him off with the other was similar to the sound a balloon makes when you let the air out just a little at a time.

Once he was hard enough that I was having a hard time getting my lips around him, he grabbed a fistful of hair and started fucking my mouth like this had been his idea. That's when the teeth came in. I dragged my incisors slowly along the length of him and heard him draw in a ragged breath. I grinned up at him around his dick and slowly shook my head. I'd let him bend me in half like I was one of those girls from cirque du soleil, so now he was gonna let me have _my_ way with him.

If there iss one way to stop an argument with a man while you have his dick in your mouth, it's to bite or to dig your nails into his scrotum, or, in my case, to do both. Not hard enough to hurt…much, but enough to certainly get his full and undivided attention. I have no idea what kind of sloppy drooling bitches had had this delectable prize in their mouths but I was willing to bet by the look of surprise on his face that none of them had ever demanded full and complete control in quite that way before.

If I'd wanted him running his fingers through my hair I'd grow it out and have it long and shining like Vero's. If I'd wanted him to gag me with his dick I wouldn't have worn waterproof mascara. What I did want was for him to stand there and watch me gobble his cock like a fucking pro and appreciate it. It's not real important for anyone to like me but I don't want them to be in any way confused about my talents.

Now that he was still, I was willing to go back to doing what I knew I was good at. I press his cock flat against his stomach and lick it from root to tip very, _verrrrryy_ slowly, making sure to circle his velvety helmet and dig the point of my tongue into the divot. Tilting my head to the side, I roll his still relaxed balls in my mouth and listen to him groan. I allow myself a little grin then and hum a happy tune that makes his thighs quiver. I decide then and there that I am going to make him say my name before I'm done with him or better yet, before he can be done.

I suck his knob like it's an all day sucker. I wrap my tongue around it and suck on it like I'm trying to pull a golf ball through a garden hose. I follow= the big, pulsating blue vein along the side of his dick with the point of my tongue. I pull on the soft skin of his helmet with teeth until his knees got weak. I roll his balls in my hand and stroke that soft, smooth skin behind it until I hear him whimper like a drunk locked out of a liquor store. I hum my way down his shaft and back again. I hold him along my tongue and urge him gently down my throat until I can't take any longer and he's blanched like he's seen a ghost. I lick the drop of pre-cum and savor it while I smile up at him and then shove my mouth all the way down his reed until he's nearly gone and then back again, quicker and quicker, bobbing my head in time to the cheesy porn score in my head until he's breathing heavy through his mouth and muttering colourful curse words under his breath, not all of which are in English.

His balls pull up tight and he's struggling to stand there in the middle of the kitchen with nothing to hold onto. That's when I go for the secret weapon, or what I'm guessing will be nothing but a surprise to Mr. White Bread, small town boy. Even with all those puck bunnies so willing to jump into his bed and hump his brains out I'm willing to bet that not one of them has ever gone where my finger slides now. I can tell by the way he jumps and tries to shimmy away that I'm right. But he can't go anywhere because I have his dick all the way into my mouth and I'm holding it tight at the base and if he pulls back now he risks dismemberment of the kind that he won't be able to hide in the locker room.

"What…what are you…oh. Oh!" I roll my eyes up and watch his get wide, his full, sensuous mouth open like he's about to say something but nothing comes out. Another centimeter and I'm on the button but not yet. Oh no…not yet. "So…oh shit…oh fuck!" He's trying to tell me he's close, as if I need a hint. I just keep looking at him, patiently waiting. He stares down at me, clearly confused as to why my hand, mouth and tongue, not to mention that digit that's gone back door have all stopped moving. By the raise of one single eyebrow I know that Sidney Crosby is a little slow, but far from dumb.

He makes a very unhappy and a very stubborn looking face. It's a pretty stupid thing to do considering how tight his balls are pulled up right at this moment and that pretty much all I have to do is wiggle just about anything and he's going to go off like a roman candle but everything I've heard about the hockey phenomenon seems to hold true in this moment. He's a fucking control freak and right about now he's hating me and the fact that I'm holding all the cards.

I start to pull back, slowly, slowly working my lips back along the length of dick and then that pissed off expression changes to something more akin to 'no no no mommy don't take the cookies away' and he starts to reach out to push my head back down and I stop, mid dick, and raise my eyebrow again.

"Fuuuuuck. Fine, please," he grumbles. I smile but shake my head, as much as I can with my mouthful as I edge it down a half an inch. "Please make me cum?" he adds in low, rumbling growl. I tilt my head and make that noise that says you're getting warmer and then begin to hum that Jeopardy countdown. "Alright…fuck! Please Violet, I'm going to fucking explode in a minute." I'm guessing just by the way his scrotum feels like a couple of ball bearings that he's right, but instead of verbally agreeing, I slide him all the way back until he's playing twister with my tonsils and then I wiggle my finger and with a roar that's sure to wake the neighbors he blasts off like a rocket ship to Mars.

* * *

><p>"We don't talk about that, okay?" I tell her as I dig my hand into the bottom of the cereal box. I'm sitting on the floor because my legs feel like they do after a bag skate and I'm eating cereal because I'm hungry just like I am after practice. I'm pretty sure I could eat a whole mess of cheesecake, maybe followed by a steak and a big ass bowl of pasta right about now. I hear a snort above me and look up to see her washing her hands in the kitchen sink with a cynical smirk on her face. "What? What's that look for?"<p>

"I just think it's funny that's all," she sighs in this way that tells me that whatever she's about to say is going to be at my expense.

"Okay, I'll bite, what's so funny?" I grumble, stuffing another handful of sugar coated cereal into my mouth. As soon as I get my strength back I'm getting out of here and stopping at the first drive through for a burger.

"Just that you think you're the first guy on your team to get the prostate treatment," she replies caustically as she crosses the floor to the fridge, opens the freezer and takes out a tub of Haagen Dazs and then hops back up onto the counter, peels the top off and digs her spoon in and suddenly I'm mesmerized, watching the spoon disappear between her lips. She holds it there and I can easily imagine the ice cream melting on her tongue and I'm surprised to feel my dick twitch in my pants. I thought it might be dead.

When she pulls the spoon very slowly out of her mouth I think I might die. I get light headed, my mouth gets dry and my pulse speeds up. When she licks the back of the spoon with the point of her pink tongue every last red blood cell in my body speeds south and as hard as I try to stop myself from doing it, I end up crawling across the floor, take the spoon out of her hand and toss it somewhere behind me. She just grins, sticks her finger in the chocolate ice cream and, keeping her gaze locked with mine, sticks her finger in her mouth and repeats the whole process over again, only this time more slowly and very deliberately.

"You _bitch_," I growl at her but she just keeps smiling back at me as she dips her finger back in the tub of ice cream. Only this time she holds her finger out towards me. I look down at what's probably only a teaspoonful of fattening , sugar laden dairy and I'm counting the calories in my head until I can hear these voices, Jordy or Max, or both, making fun of me for even thinking about shit like that when there's a woman in front of me that's ready and willing for round three.

"Sticks and stones," she purrs turning her finger back towards herself and licking the ice cream off of it, swirling her tongue around it until only a sticky film remains and then sucking her finger in between her lips and pulling it back out clean. I'm gaping at her like TK does when we go to the rippers and my dick is now actually aching and then she laughs, _at_ me.

"Fuck!" The red haze comes down like it does sometimes out on the ice when someone's pushed me too far, leaned on my buttons until I explode. I've been told that's it's pretty easy to tell when I transform from my merely intense Dr. Jekyll self to full on Mr. Hyde but she doesn't so much as flinch. In fact, all she does is reach down and tug her t-shirt up and over her head and just as I'm about to tell her that's I've seen plenty of tits in my time and it's not going to phase me, she grabs the tub of ice cream again, dips her fingers in it and then smears the cold chocolate desert over her nipples.

Well damn. I pride myself on having more self control than almost anyone I know, but even for me that's like waving a red flag in front of a charging bull.

Grabbing her breast in one hand I swirl my tongue around her nipple and am gratified to hear a muffled groan. The ice cream is cold on my tongue but it's also had the effect of making her nipple tighten and harden and that little nub fits nicely between my teeth and she gasps out loud when I give it a firm tug. I half expect to get slapped or at the very least have her grab my hair and pull me off but instead she whimpers and when she does grab my hair it's only to guide me to her other nipple. This one I take my time with, licking the ice cream off of it more slowly and sucking her nipple into my mouth before giving it some teeth. It's good to hear her mew like a kitten and it makes me want to force her to make more sounds like that.

Sliding my hand down between her thighs I dip my fingers into her cleft. She's warm and slick and as I press down on that magic button I hear a strangled cry, like she's trying not but can't help it. I like that, _a lot_, especially after what she's put me through tonight.

"I am gonna fuck you so hard," I whisper, licking my way up over her collarbone and up to her ear. "You're gonna get up, walk over to the table, put your hands on it and bend over and then I am gonna fuck you 'til you scream." I slide two fingers into her and feel her muscles clench down around them. She wants it and I know she's not going to admit it but when I get up and offer her a hand up she takes it and walks silently over to the table where she puts her hands flat on the surface and then spreads her feet wide.

My jeans are pooled at my feet and her hips are in my hands and I'm staring down at the tattoos on the curve of the small of her back, a female version of the comic book character Hot Stuff above one cheek and a character that looks a lot like Wendy from Casper and Wendy but with a white robe and a halo over her head on the other. Something tells me Violet hardly ever listens to the angel.

"Well?" she wiggles her ass in front of me and I've never even been tempted to do it before even when a girl's asked me to but without even thinking about it I raise my hand up and bring it down hard on the fleshy part of her ass. It makes an amazing sound and leaves a nice red welt in the shape of my hand on her pale flesh. She doesn't so much as flinch. She just looks over her shoulder at me and grins.

With a growl I ram myself into her, right to the hilt, wanting to wipe that grin off of her face but the only one losing it is me. If I had thought she was tight before, it's nothing in comparison to the way she feels from this angle. The sensation make my breath catch in my throat at first and it takes me a moment to get my bearings again and when I do she's still got that 'whatchagonnadoaboutitboy?' look on her face with that smirk and her eyebrow raised at me like she can't believe that she's still waiting for me to do something.

Never let it be said I don't rise to a challenge.

The wooden table legs screech as they rub across the tile floor and the table top slams into the wall with a loud banging sound that should make me worried about it breaking. Fuck it. If it does I'll replace it. It's worth it to hear her cry out and to see her nails digging into the table.

"Harder."

I almost want to ask her if she's kissing. My thighs are kissing the back of hers like this is a prize fight but she's giving as good as I'm giving her so I shorten up my strokes and double my speed and she tosses her head back and lets out a long, low moan.

"How's that? Hard enough for you?" I snarl, raising my hand up again and bringing it down on the same spot where my hand print is still visibly red. Her entire body shudders and then she looks over her shoulder at me and smiles.

"No." I shake my head at her and she just laughs. I press my hands against her shoulders and press her down flat to the table and then with one hand on her hip and the other in the middle of her back, I pull my hips back and slam into her as hard and as deeply as I can.

I don't know about her, but I almost see stars. Her pussy tightens around my cock like a god damned c-clamp and it takes a full minute to catch my breath. Then I'm just mad that she keeps getting one up on me and reach forward, grab a handful of her hair and tug her head back so she has to look at me.

"How about now?" I growl but she smiles like I haven't done a damn thing differently. "Fucking bitch," I snarl at her and ram into her as hard as I can. Her mouth falls open but the smile doesn't disappear.

"Harder."

I give her ass a good, hard smack and then push her face forward, grab her hips with both hands and ram into her hard and fast. The friction is amazing but I keep thinking that this has to be hurting her, with the end of the table pressed into her thighs but she isn't complaining, far from it. She's making encouraging, even happy little noises and I can already feel the wave like sensation rippling around my cock that tells me she's getting close.

"Harder you pussy, _harder_!" She looks back at me, her cheek pressed to the hardwood top of the table and the light in her grey blue eyes looks almost demonic as she sneers at me. Like she knows it's one of the worst things she could call me, her maniacal grin turns into laughter as I spank her harder than before, hard enough to hurt my own hand but she just giggles.

"Remember, you asked for this," I warn and she rolls those light coloured eyes of hers at me.

It feels like her pussy is going to bite my dick off and it's almost too difficult to do it out but I pull it out just to the point where I'm barely inside her at all, so that I have to actually hold myself to stop from falling out, and I wait…, wait until she turns and glares at me.

"_What_ are you fucking _waiting_ for?" she hisses at me like an angry snake and then it's my turn to smile smugly at her as I slowly screw myself back into her and watch her expression transform from angry to almost serene and then her eyes screwed shut and she let out a long low howl.

For a moment it feels exactly like I've licked a car battery, stuck my finger in a light socket and been hit by lightening all at once. From the balls of my feet to the top of my head I feel like I have no control over any of my muscles. They all constrict at the same time that my back arches and I let go my own sort of victory roar as her pussy milks me dry.

If I hadn't been holding onto her she would have slipped to the floor as her knees gave and her entire body seemed to become fluid as she lay there on the table but I can't help but notice that she's wearing a smile that I'm hoping means she's finally satisfied. I open my mouth to ask when she opens one eye and grins up at me.

"Is there more wine?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I woke with the odd sensation that I'd had a bad dream which was quickly followed by the distinctly off putting sensation that I wasn't in my own bed. Cracking open one eye confirmed that I only vaguely recognized the room I was in, especially noting the empty bottle of merlot sitting on the bed side table. I hardly ever drink wine and I never, ever bring it to bed.

Having shared a room with Duper on the road the last couple of seasons, it wasn't a novel sensation to not be entirely sure where I was when I woke up but it was a fairly new one to have the feeling that I wasn't alone. Sharing a room on the road didn't necessarily mean two twin beds, side by side. More often than not it really meant adjoining rooms and Dupes is a married man, a happily married man, so he doesn't bring puck bunnies back to the hotel with him and I…well, I can't usually get away with it. So while I was somewhat used to having the feeling that the bed and even the room was all new, having the impression of another warm body next to mine, that was definitely a fairly unique feeling.

Surreptitiously I felt around behind me with one hand until my fingers met warm, smooth skin and then I pulled my hand back like I'd touched the hot element on a stove. I'd closed my eyes again but now I squeezed them shut and cursed under my breath.

'No! No, no, no, no, _no_.' I'd thought it was a bad dream. Well, a good sex dream but a bad dream, but one quick glance over my shoulder confirmed it as my gaze landed on an arm entirely covered by a sleeve of colourful tattoos. 'Damn' I muttered as I tried to think of where my clothes were and which way was the closest exit.

"You awake, finally?" her voice, immediately grated on my nerves as the quilt rustled and the bed moved. I glanced over to find her already in a pair of jeans with a black halter top on. One glance under the sheets confirmed that I was, as I anticipated, still naked. She slid a bookmark in place and put the book that she'd obviously been reading while I slept on the nightstand on her side of the bed and then walked towards the door to the hall. "Have a shower, I'll make you something to eat and then I've got to go to work so as the Duke said, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here."

I watched her walk into the hall and then waited to hear her footsteps go down the stairs before I slid out of the bed and padded into the en-suite. I cranked on the hot water and then stood under it and tried to wash away my shame.

* * *

><p>There was some eggs left, I noted as I stuck my head in the refrigerator, after my nearly all night baking trial and error. I took out about six eggs and cracked them into a bowl, added some milk, some salt and pepper and then put a pan on to warm up. There was some ham left from my lunch yesterday and a couple of slices of cheddar. I put those aside to add in once the eggs got going and then wondered if I should put coffee on or if he'd want juice. I was just sticking my head back in the fridge when he came around the corner, fingering the edges of his shirt and looking down at with confusion on his face.<p>

"Yeah, I washed it. Didn't iron it," I added for sake of clarification.

"Washed and dried, when did you get up?" he asked and I knew he was wishing he'd managed an escape earlier. I cut a cube of butter off and dropped it into the pan, waited until it melted and then poured the egg mixture into it. I pulled out a spatula and pointed at table that, yes, I'd cleaned.

"Couldn't sleep," I explained as I reached for a cutting board and began to dice the ham. "Once you passed out I put your clothes in the wash and came down here." He was now eyeing me suspiciously from his seat at the table and I tried not to laugh. I, like a lot of other people in the world, had seen the pictures that certain moralistically bankrupt puck fucks had taken of not just him but other sports figures, post coitus, and posted on their blogs, face book, twitter and just about anywhere else they could think of as proof of bagging a superstar. "I've been down here almost the entire time," I explained without going into detail as I sprinkled the cubes of meat on the now almost cooked eggs, "and no, I'm not about to run around telling everyone," I added as I began to shred the cheese over the meat. It wasn't my imagination, he looked fucking relieved. Shaking my head and allowing myself to disregard him almost entirely as a good human being, I folded the omelet over with a flick of the wrist and then slid it onto a plate. "Juice, tea, coffee?" I offered as I walked the plate over and set it and a knife and fork in front of him.

"I usually have a protein shake in the morning," he mumbled as he looked down at the plate of protein in front of him, the cheese oozing out of the omelet in what I thought was a very tempting manner.

"I'll do you something better than that," I sneered, going back to the fridge and pulling out the tray of ice cubes along with a container of fresh berries. "I'm surprised you'd drink that chemicals shit," I added as I poured milk over the ice in the blender and then reached for a banana, peeling it and breaking it into pieces as I added it to the mixture. "I thought you were one of those my body is my temple guys," I continued as I poured the container of frozen blueberries in. "These are organic, no pesticides, no sprays," I rambled before spooning full fat Greek vanilla yogurt into the blender and then closing the top. He opened his mouth but I hit the crush ice button and let the roar of the blender tune him out.

* * *

><p>Breakfast had been good and so had the sex. If Max or Jordy had been in my shoes as I slid them on, they would have asked for her number and made a date to see her again. For myself, I still couldn't wait to get out of the house and off to practice. As it was, I was running late and showing up at practice in the same clothes I'd worn to MAF and Vero's last night ensured I was never going to hear the end of this. I was wondering if there was a Walmart or something I could stop at on the way and get a change of clothes when she slid a plastic Ziploc container towards me.<p>

"Not for you, obviously. I hear you don't eat sweets, but the other guys might enjoy them," she said coolly as I took the container. I stared down at the container, obviously filled with fully iced cupcakes, and then up at her. She was pulling on her leather jacket and I noticed she had keys in her hand. I glanced out at the driveway but could only see my SUV sitting there. "God, don't panic, you don't have to be seen with me. Just drop me off at the corner of the street and I'll walk down to Fleur and Vero's…or fuck, I'll walk the whole way if you're gonna look at me like that."

I did my best to school my features and remind myself that I'd been raised better than this and then held open the door while she walked through it.

"I'll drop you at MAF's, maybe he needs a ride to the rink," I added, hoping in fact that he'd left already. She gave me one of those looks like she didn't believe me but walked through the door anyway and then turned to lock it while I walked to my car and got in.

I prepared myself for a repeat of the night before when she got in but as she pulled the door shut and settled into the passenger seat, she sat, staring quietly out the window and didn't say a word as I backed out of the driveway and headed down the street. She stayed that way, absolutely silent, until I drove into Marc's driveway and then just turned and smiled as she unlocked her seat belt.

"It's been a slice Crosby," she said and then turned and slid out of the vehicle. I watched her walk to her bike, grab her helmet and then toss her leg over it. She looked so self assured, so butch, so tough that I almost admired her for a moment, and then she kick started the beast and it roared so loudly to life that I thought she was a total cunt for waking up the entire neighborhood. I almost got out of my car to tell her so but she roared past me, and in a blink of an eye, her and her hog were out of sight.

* * *

><p>"Vi, I need you to stay for dinner service."<p>

I didn't look up from pouring the ganache over the flourless chocolate torte. It was important that I poured it evenly. Besides, I didn't need to look up to know that the executive chef was standing over me with that pained look on his face. I also knew that someone was going to pay for that look on his face and that it wasn't going to be me.

"Can't," I replied quickly, gently guiding the last of the ganache over the torte before putting the bowl aside and carefully picking up the cake platter and heading for the fridge. Richard opened the door for me and watched as I gently guided the platter in, keeping it level. "Fresh raspberries go on that," I told him as I returned to my station to start the next desert, home-made orange caramel and brown butter ice cream.

"We have a fund raiser in here tonight and they've requested some special items." There was almost a whine in the chef's voice as he pushed a card towards me and Richard never whined so I looked.

"Lava cakes? Fuck, go to the store and buy them. Any fucking monkey can make those," I muttered. Some people. They book an expensive restaurant known for its ambitious menu and top notch ingredients and they ask for a desert you can take out of any refrigerated section of any grocery store in the city. "Call them and tell them you have a perfectly good desert selection made by a talented pastry chef and if they still whine tell them to fuck off," I added, turning on the ice cream machine and upending a vat of heavy cream into it.

"Apparently you made these for some fund raiser at the hospital you helped to cater?" It wasn't really a question, more of an accusation. It was meant to get me off my guard, except for the fact that I could get a position in any kitchen in this city or any other city without having to make a single call and I certainly couldn't live off of the wages that I was currently making and chef DeChantz knew it so he said it quietly, keeping his voice low enough so the threat was more implied than aimed.

"Fine, whatever. How many?" I asked, thinking about the recipe I had played with last night when I had been too keyed up to sleep. Adding Napoleon brandy would make the ganache richer but would at least give me something to think about while I made the little fuckers.

"A hundred and they want the hazelnut…."

"Yeah, yeah, hazelnut gelato," I muttered, shooing him away as I stifled a yawn. At least I'd be able to go home after I'd prepared everything. The problem was I'd still have to come back.

* * *

><p>I felt like my tie was strangling me. I pulled at and tugged at it and then Geno's big meaty paw slapped my hand away.<p>

"Look fine," he lisped and then gave me a shove that sent me stumbling forward into the restaurant. I could hear Jordy and Flower giggling like schoolgirls behind me. I hated these kinds of things, even though it was for a good cause, because it was time that should have been my own. There seemed to be less and less of that these days and I was starting to resent it. I resented it more today because I was exhausted. I slept before the game, like I usually did, but today my body hadn't bounced back the way it usually did, and not just because it was one of those afternoon games. I guess now I knew what it felt like to be one of those girls that woke up in Max's bed after he'd spent all night using and abusing them only to kick them out with no breakfast.

There was already quite a crowd milling around in the restaurant. Nine on Nine. I'd only been here a couple times, once with Nat and Mario and once on a date. The décor was cool and I think I remember that the food had been good.

"Amuse-bouche?" A pretty blonde with too much spray tan held a platter out for us and we all stared at the little towers of food that looked a bit like sushi but I was guessing that it wasn't.

"What is?" Geno picked up one of the cucumber wrapped things and held it up like he could see through it with his special spidey sense x-ray vision or something.

"You're so classy." Every hair on the back of my head stood up at the sound of her voice and I turned to see Violet standing behind me with a plate of something I did recognize, tiny cupcakes just like the ones I had brought to practice this morning. "You don't ask what it is, you just eat it. It's not like we're going to poison you. But if you must know, it's roulade courgettes a la mozzarella et au jambon cru," she added in a tone that suggested she didn't think we'd know what that meant either and she thought we were ignorant because of it.

"Ham and cheese, sounds innocent enough." I took one and popped it in my mouth, chewing slowly. She watched me with an eyebrow raised and then gave me a grudging look of respect before disappearing. I watched her go, my body remembering things I'd almost forgotten about last night and wondering why in the hell she was here.

"Violet and Sidney sitting in a tree," Jordan began before I elbowed him in the gut making him spit his aperitif out onto a napkin.

"Shut up Gronk," I warned him and aimed our group towards the head table where Mario was waiting.

"Tough game." I nodded as I took the glass he offered me, white wine, chilled and knowing Mario, expensive. I didn't argue the point about the game. It had been a shit game and I'd played like shit. I knew it, he knew it and I'm pretty sure most of the fans knew it too. "Where was your head at tonight?" He sounded like my old man when he said shit like that. Sometimes I wasn't sure at times like these if he was playing the role of the concerned owner of the team or if he was being my foster father. If he'd called me up to his office and asked me this question I'd have answered him but here, with all these paying guests milling around, I didn't want to get into it. I looked around for one of the guys to help me out but they'd all been drawn off by the high paying guests and were playing their parts, smiling and being receptive, leaning in to listen to questions and actually looking like they gave a shit, which I knew they didn't. They wanted to be at home as much as I did right now.

"Cupcake?" She appeared, just like magic, beside Mario with her platter of sugary goodness and a smirk on her face that told me that she clearly knew that she was saving my ass and that she was going to hold it over my head. Great.

"Oh he doesn't…," Mario began and then watched me stuff the little cherry filled whip cream topped chocolate desert into my mouth.

"He can't say no to my cupcakes," she said, looking directly at me, everything we did the night before in her heated gaze. It was suddenly hard to swallow but somehow I managed.

"Well I guess I'll have to try one," Mario's big hand reached onto the platter and took one of the delicate sweet little cakes and popped it whole into his mouth. She turned and watched him with this considering look on his face and he watched her with the same contemplative look that bordered on illicit. I'd seen Max look at plenty of women like that. Half of them slapped him. Half of them went home with him. Violet was looking at him like she'd let him take her home.

"You like?" It might have sounded, to someone just passing by, that she was asking if he liked the confection he was deliberately chewing very slowly but the look in her eyes was something I'd seen before and I didn't think she was asking about the damn cupcake at all. I looked back up towards my mentor and his ice blue eyes were raking over the tight black long sleeved dress she was wearing, or rather seemed to be wearing her.

"Oui, I do, very much," he replied in this soft lisp, his accent suddenly stronger than it usually was.

"I'm so glad," she smiled, her gaze making it obvious that she also liked what she was looking at. I felt like I'd walked into a private conversation. I also felt rage growing in my chest, my hands curling into fists and the red mist filling my vision. "You should be sure to try the blackout torte after the dinner, if you're staying that long?" She was asking him…right in front of me, she was asking him….

"Of course he's staying that long, this is his fucking fundraiser!" I snapped, grabbing the tray out of her hand and putting it in the hand of the nearest server heading back towards the kitchen who looked at me with big surprised eyes. I ignored those, and the same look of astonishment on Mario's face and dragged Violet through the crowd, pushing people out of my way, muttering excuses as I tugged her behind me until I found the exit sign that lead out to the alley.

* * *

><p>I laughed when he turned and pinned me to the brick wall, fury and lust confused in his gaze. I stared at his lips and licked my own.<p>

"He's a fucking married man," he snarled at me, spittle landing cool on my cheek.

"I wasn't exactly twisting his arm," I smiled back at him, listening as his teeth grind together. I felt the bones in my wrists crunch as he pinned it to the rough brick beside my head.

"Do you just fuck anything?" he asked, his mouth so close to mine, his massive, strong thigh pressing between mine. I wanted to rub against it. I wondered if I could get off just doing that. I thought I could.

"I fucked _you_," I replied nonchalantly as I watched his hazel eyes bleed to almost black. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. I could see a thousand thoughts go through his mind as his jaw worked, his eyes narrowing, but one thought kept passing behind those gold flecked irises and he was fighting it like there was less than a minute left in a tie game and he had the puck on his stick and no one open to pass to. Curling my free hand around his tie, I pulled him closer until our lips were just brushing, then I slowly ran my tongue along his bottom lip. With a growl that could easily have come from a wild animal, he gave in to the one thought he had been fighting and his other hand slid between us and up and under my dress. His eyes got big when he found nothing barring his way, his fingers immediately slipping in between my pussy lips. "Are you kidding?" I whispered against his mouth in answer to his unspoken question, "under this dress? There was no way."

He pressed his mouth against mine and shoved two fingers into my sex at the same time. My lips parted to emit a gasp but his tongue forced that sound back as it slid over mine. I felt the bricks bite into my back and I was sure that I could hear the thin material of my dress rip and I didn't care.

"Whore," he growled against my neck as his teeth dug in, sending a mixture of pain and a shudder of pleasure through my entire body.

"Spoiled brat," I hissed back, sliding my hand down between us and cupping his cock and balls through the tented fabric of his suit pants. He groaned against my neck and pressed hard against my hand. "God you're hot for me." I knew it was like spitting in his face, like holding a drink in front of an alcoholic and I got the reaction I knew it would get me. He picked me up like a I weighed less than a feather, slammed me back against the wall and held me there with his chest, with one arm, while he worked his dick free. He stared at me like I was a pedophile, like I was the worst kind of scum he could think of and I stared right back, licking my lips as I felt his dick press between my pussy lips.

I wanted to have no reaction. I wanted to look at him like it was nothing to me but as he pressed his cock inside of me, as it slid home like a key to a lock, I moaned. I moaned like a slut in one of those cheap home-made porn flicks. I moaned and I kept moaning as he fucked me up against that wall like he was trying to fuck through me. I groaned like a ten dollar whore and I wrapped myself around him like he was the last life vest in a storm.

His nostrils flared and his eyes flashed and he stared at me like I was one of those goons out on the ice taunting him and he wanted to hurt me. I did my best to do the same but I knew I failed. It felt too good and besides, my job, my life was on the other side of this wall and if anyone so much as stuck their heads out the door it would be my head rolling down the street. I wouldn't work in this restaurant or any other decent restaurant in this town or any other if Richard could help it. Even knowing that I didn't want to stop and I didn't care that I could feel my ass being scraped raw on the rough brick wall, or that I'd have to change into my chef whites before I could go back out on the floor and someone would ask me why. I didn't care. I dug my heels into his ass and pressed down on his massive, wide shoulders and rode him like a fucking pogo stick.

Sweat broke out along his forehead. I wanted to lick it off but we were still having our staring contest. I wondered if he hated me or himself more for giving in. I didn't care. I zoned in on the sweat on his upper lip and licked that off, and then kissed him like it was that or die.

I felt more than heard him groan as he suddenly exploded inside me, his cock pumping, throbbing inside of me. I wanted to slam my fists into his shoulders when he went still, his forehead pressed against mine as he panted and let me slide to my feet. I was about to open my mouth and bitterly complain about leaving me hanging but just as I did, with one hand, he turned me around until I faced the brick wall and then slid his fingers back up my skirt.

With two fingers inside of me, pumping away and two fingers sliding around my waist and down between my thighs, he brought me, quickly, screaming his name. When my knees threatened to give out, he caught me in his arms and held me back against him, his breathing still heavy, his chest still heaving.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked, his voice low and rasping.

"I work here," I explained as I leaned back into him.

"I'll have to remember that and stay away from this place," he snarled, and then just like some kind of superhero leaving the scene, his arms and then all of him was gone, stomping out of the alley towards the street. I watched him until he disappeared around the corner and then snuck further back into the alley, to the door the cooks usually smoked outside of but they would be busy with service now and I was able to sneak in unnoticed, grabbing my chef's jacket and buttoning it before someone came looking for me.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry for the wait, but sometimes I know that I need to get from a to b but not how I'm going to do it and then last night I had a eureka moment so I should be able to get more done soon_

**Chapter 4**

"I feel like I'm ten again, being sent to bed before midnight," Jordan complained bitterly as he sat, moping and staring at the glass in front of him; Coke, not beer, and worse than that, Coke not champagne.

"You think you'd be used to this," I pointed out, which only earned me a very steely glare. We didn't get a week of for Christmas, we were lucky to spend the entire day with our families. New Years Eve didn't even rate, not for a professional hockey player and definitely not for one playing tomorrow; maybe.

"If it rains all day tomorrow I'll be pissed that we didn't go to a bar," Jordan continued to grumble and stare sullenly at the food on his plate, petulantly refusing to eat it like a child. As if doing that would suddenly soften Dan's heart and he'd let us go out.

"You're lucky you're going to get to play tomorrow," I pointed out, "you should be celebrating." It was the wrong word to use but I realized it too late. Max spit his drink across the table and Jordan glared at me like he was actually thinking about grabbing me by the neck and trying to break all the bones in my neck with his bare hands.

"Make love not war."

I should have been happy for the intervention. It might have just saved my life. I wasn't.

"What the fuck is _she_ doing here?" I snarled, staring down at the cupcake she'd just put down in the middle of my plate. I refused to watch her walk away, afraid if I did that I'd get up and follow her. It had been weeks and I hadn't seen her. Of course I'd found reasons not to join in on dinners at Marc and Vero's and had turned down a dinner out with Mario and my parents just because the reservations were at her restaurant. I didn't trust myself, not around her.

"What's your problem with her? I think she's nice," Kris was watching her walk away and the look on his face was he was considering doing things to her that I knew I'd probably already done.

"She's not nice. She's an opinionated bitch," Max grumbled, his gaze also following her retreat but the expression on his face made it clear he wanted to do darker things to her, things that would probably hurt, but that he wanted her as much as Kris seemed to. I shook my head.

"Total cunt," I mumbled, peeling the paper from the base of the cupcake and then lifting the coconut covered confection to my mouth. As the fluffy white icing that I assumed was supposed to look like snow and ice, reached my lips I caught Jordan staring at me. "What?" I asked, and then took a bite.

"You don't even eat oatmeal raison cookies," he pointed out, a little unnecessarily.

"I'm…hungry," I snapped back at him, pushed my chair back and walked away from the table. I didn't mean to follow her. I don't think I even consciously thought about the direction she'd gone in, but as I walked I realized that I was heading for the table where her, Vero and Michelle Cooke were tidying up what was left of the buffet. Some of the kids were starting to fuss. The moms would be taking them up to the rooms soon. The players wouldn't be far behind.

Michelle and Vero noticed me first. Both of them got that wary look on their faces that dogs get when they've been kicked one too many times. Violet looked up and gave me a wary look, but not like she expected to get kicked, but like she was one of those pound dogs that had been turned in for aggression and was ready to bite if I reached between the bars.

"Why is she here?" I aimed the question at Vero and not at Vero, mostly because I didn't trust myself to look into those crazy coloured eyes of hers. I didn't know if she had some kind of telekinetic, psychological and spiritual power that I didn't understand, but I knew that if I looked at her In that tight black shirtzee and those skin tight leggings I was going to want to drag her out of this room and find a broom closet nearby to fuck her in.

"Sidney she's my friend," Vero replied in that pleading voice that she uses on me or any of the other guys when we're in a mood around MAF. She's good at calming him down after a loss and I know that voice has something to do with it.

"If you'd stayed over there she wouldn't be bothering you at all," Michelle snaps like a tiger, in the same way that her husband growls and snaps like a wolverine. I look over into her blue eyes and for a minute I think she knows, that she can see right through me and knows that Violet is as tempting to me as gooey, icing covered chocolate cake is to a dieter. I stare her down, willing her to say it out loud but she narrows her eyes and purses her lips and stares back at me. I guess this tiger is used to dealing with another predator and isn't intimidated by me.

"I'll take this stuff to the kitchen." I blink, tear my gaze away from Michelle's and turn to look at Violet. It doesn't seem possible, that she blinked first, but she isn't looking at me now. She's loading a half eaten tray of lasagna on a cart that's already groaning with left-overs that I hope someone either takes to a shelter or feeds some of the fans waiting outside in the cold.

"We can call someone," Michelle offers but Violet smiles at her like they're friends and shakes her head.

"Not my first time in this kitchen. I'm sure they won't mind. I'll hang out with the new pastry chef. See if there's anything new going on around here." Her smile is warm and the ones that Vero and Michelle send back to her are just as warm and fuzzy, as if they're sending her a visual hug because I'm such a bastard. She starts to wheel the cart towards the doors that are separating all of us from anyone else in this hotel and I find myself watching her go, with an ache in my middle like something's being pulled out of me, away from me.

"What is your problem Sid?" Michelle snaps at me again. She could have smacked me, her verbal tongue lashing feels the same. I turn and look at her, at the way she's put together like she could have walked out of a town and country catalogue despite the fact that she has a household of kids to look after which includes Matt who doesn't seem like a handful off the ice but I'm guessing he's not exactly the easiest going guy either. She looks like a WAG, in the same way that Vero does now, after a nip there and an enhancement here. Violet, with her tats and her purple bangs doesn't belong. I don't know why they can't see that.

"I don't like her, none of the guys do," I grumble and now it looks like I've done the slapping. V winces and drops her gaze from mine. Michelle, a little older and with her brood, probably armed with a higher functioning b.s. meter smirks and shakes her head.

"I think a lot of the guys don't have a problem with her at all and she's great with the kids. I think you just don't like her because she isn't easily impressed." Damn it, now I'm sure she knows something and I also know that if I start denying it she'll smell a rat and call me on it so I keep my mouth shut and turn to go back to the table, to the guys. Except that isn't where I end up.

I go right past the table and out into the hall where she's talking to someone in a uniform. He's got a hold of the cart and she actually looks like she's arguing with him and then tries to pull off looking disappointed that he's taking it away from her.

"Just let him take it," I call out to her as she finally lets go of it and I watch the guy wheel the cart down the hall. "Do you have to argue with everyone about everything?"

"It's one of the few things I'm good at," she replies, her gaze still following the cart down the hall with an unhappy expression on her face. I barely am able to bite back a laugh and when she turns to me she rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "Seriously? What are you, twelve? I didn't…I wasn't trying to go for some double entendre. Not everything is about sex."

"Really? Then why _did_ you come here?" I don't even wait for her answer. I glance at my watch and then back the way I've come. "Fine, we can go to my room. Dupes won't be up for probably a half hour." When I look up at her she's staring at me like I've just said something outrageous. "What? That's why you came."

"Oh my god, do you even hear yourself?" she crosses her arms over her breasts as if that's going to hide them from me. Not the way they stretch that Pens logo all out of shape. "I came because Vero said that they could use an extra pair of hands with the kids and the dinner and because I'm her friend and the only reason you even knew I was here was because I thought that you and Jordan were going to have a fight, so I interjected. Sorry I spoke," she snaps and it all sounds very believable, except for the fact that the whole time she's talking she's staring at my mouth.

"Whatever. If it makes you feel better to pretend you don't want it, I guess we can play that game but look I don't have a lot of time and…."

"I thought you weren't even supposed to have sex before a game," she points out, which, to me, is just another stalling tactic.

"Old wife's tale," I reply with an impatient sigh. "Now, are we doing this or not because I said I'd meet my dad after dinner."

"No, we definitely are _not_," she slaps my hand away when I reach for hers' and takes a step back. "God you make it sound like you'd be doing me a favor when we all know it's the other way around," she scoffs and takes a step away. "I could back in there right now and have my pick," she adds which makes me laugh.

"Whatever," I mutter trying to convince myself that I don't care that I'm getting the brush off, that it doesn't matter to me.

"Look, you know what they say; shake it once, that's alright, shake it twice that's fine, but shake it three times and you can't call it fooling around anymore because that's considered a relationship and I'm damn sure I don't want one of those with you and I'm sure you feel the same about me so let's not tempt the fates, deal?"

"Wow, you've put a lot of thought into this. It's just fucking sex. You're like fucking Jordan on a fucking breakaway. Don't you think you're over thinking this?" I point out, which earns me another eye roll.

"I'm not the one who got all jealous," she smirks, raising an eyebrow in an accusing way.

"Did not," I mutter, suddenly finding a spot on the floor that's pretty fucking fascinating.

"Whatever, I'm not going to argue with you Crosby. I know what I saw," she sighs and leans back against the wall in this nonchalant way that makes me want to grab her and shake her.

"I think you're dealing with some kind of alternate reality or some wishful thinking," I reply, shrugging because if she doesn't care, I don't care.

"Seriously, go play with your friends and I promise to stay away if it makes it easier on you so that you don't want me so much…."

"I don't want you! You're the one showing up where you're not wanted," I snarl and far from the silence I thought the accusation would buy me, she laughs at me.

"Oh my _God_, you are _sooo_ full of yourself! Believe me, you are _not_ that special," she snickers, an expression that makes me want to smack it off of her face.

"I didn't hear you complaining," I shoot back.

"Oh please, you didn't do anything I can't do to myself in half the time and believe me, I'd feel better too," she smirks and I feel my hands curling into fists again.

"Really? Is that why you were screaming my name?" I shoot back.

"In your dreams Crosby. I _never_ screamed your name. I think you have it confused with all those times you had to use the 'ol five knuckle shuffle jerking off and thinking of me and moaning out my name," she snipes, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Should I show you the marks on my back you left? Would that remind you?"

"I didn't say you didn't fuck me, I'm just saying it wasn't that memorable," she replies with this snarky smile on her face that dares me to challenge her. I'm losing the verbal battle and we both know it. I should walk away, I know that too, but that isn't what I've been bred to do. So instead of leaving now and finding some place to lick my wounds, I opt for battle.

* * *

><p>When he grabs my wrist and locks his hand around it, I have this overwhelming sense of déjà vu. When he drags me past a group of baby blue jersey wearing fans to take their elevator I think he won't get away with it but they part like the red sea for Moses and as soon as the big chrome doors close I know I'm literally screwed. I think, for about thirty seconds, about fighting him, but when he presses me against the back of the elevator and shoves his hand right down the front of my leggings, I know it's too late to try.<p>

"You're fucking wet," he hisses into my ear as he slides two fingers over my clit and down to into where the juices are accumulating. "You fucking want it. You want me to fuck you."

"Actually it was looking at Kris's ass in those jeans that did it." It's not a lie, not altogether. Kris is heartbreakingly beautiful in the way that a Bernini sculpture is, beautiful to look at but somehow you know you're not worthy to touch it.

"Bullshit," he growls into my ear, working my clit furiously. I want to tell him it's not a game controller, except that it feels so damn good. God if he presses just a millionth of an inch to the right…. "I think you've been lying in your bed at night, touching yourself and thinking of me." I shake my head, which isn't easy to do with my head pressed against the back wall of the elevator while I'm biting hard on the inside of my cheek to stop from moaning out loud. I will not give him that satisfaction.

"I think you're confusing me with you again," I spit back as my knees get weak. I have to stop looking into his eyes, I think, screwing them shut and turning my face away. I will _not_ give him the satisfaction.

"I think you do. I think you can't stop thinking about it, that's why you're here," he continues, the entire length of his body pressed against mine, holding me fast but letting me know that there's more to come, much, _much_ more.

"I haven't given it a second thought," I reply breathlessly. I'm already so close I can barely keep my voice from quavering.

"Do you call out my name when you make yourself cum?" he growls into my neck, ignoring that I'm disputing the facts.

"Actually I call out Max's name," I tell him. "Even when I'm fucking other people, sometimes it just slips out." It's a lie but the growl that erupts from his throat is worth the fabrication. When I'd come here this afternoon I'd been determined to avoid him, to avoid _this._ I'd been serious about not doing this again. I liked it too much and I did fantasize about it, hating myself and him the entire time. That's why I knew this couldn't happen again and I really had done my best to stay away from him. But now, with his lips working on my neck, his thick fingers working my clit like he's trying to buzz in an answer on Jeopardy and his long, had erection rubbing against my thigh, all I want is for him to fuck my brains out.

"Well maybe I should leave you to Max then," he says, and all of a sudden I'm trying to stand on my own two feet and he's three steps away from me staring at the numbers above our heads as they light up. Part of me wants to whimper and plead and beg for him to finish what he's started but the other part of me, the part that has some dignity left holds my chin up and refuses to let him see he's had any effect on me at all.

"I could call him or Kris or Jordan, any of them would be up to my room in a snap," I insist. Sid keeps his back to me but shrugs.

"So call them. See if I care," he says, his tone cold as the door opens and he walks out of the elevator car and into the hall. I let him go. I'm not chasing after him. If that's what he wants he's dreaming in technicolour.

The doors slowly close and only then do I let myself slide to the floor, my legs trembling like freshly made Jello.


	5. Chapter 5

_I told you I'd make up for the wait...2 chapters in one week!_**  
><strong>

**Chapter 5**

"You can't wear that."

"I didn't know this was a dictatorship," I reply with a smile that's meant to get under his skin like a tick and by the way his jaw clenches and his hazel eyes get dark I'm guessing the smile and the jersey have done exactly what I intended them to do. "Besides," I add, smoothing down the jersey where he'd grabbed it and rumpled the material, "I like Brooks, his eyes are really blue, have you ever noticed how blue they are?"

"You can't sit with our families and wear _that_," he reiterates, ignoring my rhetorical question while glaring at the number on the sleeve of the jersey, "I can get you a jersey, _any one_ of our jerseys," he adds, as if by merely snapping his fingers he can make it so and maybe he can. I think about asking for a Ruutu's number thirty-seven considering he doesn't play for the team anymore or maybe Armstrong's old number twenty just to see if his absence still stings but Vero beats me to it, holding out her boyfriend's jersey, as if it's a peace offering. Her big dark eyes plead with me not to make things worse but peace is the last thing I want to make.

"No offence V, but if I'm gonna wear a Pens jersey I think I'd rather be mistaken for Kris's girlfriend than Marc's sister," I tell her while keeping an eye on Sid's reaction out of the corner of my eye and his menacing glower is exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

"No problem ma chère," Kris appears behind us and drapes his arms over both of our shoulders, but his smoldering gaze is focused entirely on me. "I'd be honored to have you wear my number."

"She's not wearing your number," Sidney growls but only Vero trembles and that makes me even more angry at him than I already am. Kris just laughs at his captain as if he knows that Sid's bark is worse than his bite.

"I believe mademoiselle Violet will wear what she pleases mon ami," he tells him with a grin and then, with one eye on his teammate and one on me, he presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. "Peut-être je vous verrai plus tard ma chère?" He doesn't wait for my answer. I assume he doesn't expect one. The small sound of a mouse being squashed under foot that comes from Vero and the fierce growl that sounds like it should have come from an actual wolf that comes from Sid is answer enough for all of us. "Viens avec moi Veronique, come kiss Flower for good luck."

There are other wives, girlfriends, family members nearby but when Kris guides Vero away, it feels like I'm alone with Sidney and his rage. I feel like a wooden ship battered and tossed by ice cold waves in the heart of a storm.

"You should be wearing my number," he hisses, his hand closing around my wrist and I can feel all of the strength of his entire body in his grasp.

"So I can be like one of your brood of worshipful puck bunnies? I don't think so." I want to laugh when I say it but when I turn to look at him my smile, like my courage, fades a little at the corners. I don't feel as brave as one of those brawny men with their pads and sticks waiting out on the ice to face him.

"What did I do to you that you think is so terrible that it merits being so fucking miserable towards me?" he asks, like this is some kind of one way street, like I'm the wicked witch of the west and he's innocent little Toto wagging his stubby little tail and skipping down the yellow brick road at Dorothy's red clad heels. Well _fuuuuuuuck_ that.

"You mean _other_ than treat me like a cheap whore?" I hiss at him, keeping my voice down and a wary eye out for eavesdroppers. I don't want my dirty laundry aired here anymore than he does.

"I didn't…I don't," he stutters, goes red, right to the tips of his ears and then drops his hand back down to his side like he's been burned. I rub my wrist, half expecting to feel something broken. I wonder how long the indentations of his fingers will stay in my skin. "You liked it," he mutters, looking up at me quickly and then down again, but not quickly enough for me to miss the accusatory look in his eyes, like I forced him to do it.

"You bastard." My hands are shaking I'm so angry and for one brief moment I think I'm going to do the girlie thing and cry. But then I take a deep breath and meet his accusing gaze with a furious one of my own. "You know, if you ever find some poor girl that will put up with your bullshit long enough to call her your girlfriend you shouldn't ask her to wear your jersey. Any girl sitting with Vero and Michelle and all the rest of them wearing your number will be enemy number one in this city and could be fucking lucky to make it out of the stadium alive. Of course her well being would never occur to you because it's all about you isn't it, you self centered asshole."

I don't wait for him to react. I don't care what he thinks or does. I just don't want to be anywhere near him, so I turn on my heel, weave through the crowd, grab Vero and head out of the family room and into the arena.

* * *

><p>"I didn't see him." I look up at the trainer. The light seems really bright. "Did he hit me or did we just run into each other?"<p>

"What do you remember?" he asks, shining a pen light in my eyes. I shake my head. I don't.

"I made a pass and then…and then," I drop my head into my hands because it feels better that way, especially when I close my eyes and the room stops spinning. My fucking ears are ringing. "I don't know. Did he hit me?"

"He laid you out," Johnny replies from across the room. He keeps an eye out for things like that, for guys head hunting, hits from behind. If he says Steckel hit me on purpose, I believe him.

"Did he get a whistle?" The room gets quiet, all the bitching about the conditions stops. I look around. All eyes are on me.

"You don't know?" I know the way Scott, the trainer, says it that it's not just a question, it's a test and my heart starts to pound knowing that if I answer the question wrong I'm going to get benched.

"I meant did the ref even talk to him?" I look hopefully at Johnny who shakes his head. "Fucking blind as a bat mother fucker," I sigh and shake my head, which actually hurts to do but it seems to ease the tension in the room as it suddenly is filled with the familiar buzz of different groups talking, laughing and cursing. My shoulders slump, partly in relief, partly because my head suddenly feels very heavy.

"You okay to go back out there?" Johnny asks. I look up at him and nod and try, very hard, not to wince when I do.

* * *

><p>"I can't believe he didn't get called for that! Hey ref, are you fucking blind? Do you need a fucking guide dog out there?" I feel Vero tugging at the back of my jersey, trying to drag me back down into my seat again. Instead of letting her, I turn and smack her hand away. "Did you see that? That was on fucking purpose! He fucking did that on purpose."<p>

"I'm sure he'll be fine," she says without looking the least bit worried about the way Sidney has just left the ice, doubled over in obvious discomfort.

"I don't care if he's fine or not," I snap, turning back to the now empty ice surface. "That…that half rate no talent farm league _asshole_ shouldn't even be out there! Fucking idiots like that are ruining the fucking game!"

"I didn't know you cared so much about Sid," Heather, Jordan's girlfriend laughs and tries to hand me a hot chocolate.

"I don't," I snap back, "other than you don't just fucking take our captain down without paying for it. I hope Kris fucking takes Ovie into the fucking boards head first," I add, shoving my hands back in the pockets of my jeans.

"Oh it's our captain now eh?" Michelle laughs, giving me a firmer tug from behind that almost ends up with me sitting in her lap. "Are you still wearing that Caps jersey under there?"

"No," I laugh, tugging my jacket down to reveal a Pens jersey underneath.

"I knew you were all bark," Michelle laughs as I zip up my jacket and huddle back down into my seat. "I don't suppose that's a Captain's jersey by any chance?"

"No," I snort, rolling my eyes. "Kris is buying breakfast," I add, trying to be as nonchalant about it as possible. I wasn't, earlier when I'd got his text. I'd been glad I'd been in the line-up for beer all on my own so I could squeal and bounce around like a high-school cheerleader and the most anyone around me did was look at me like I was nuts.

"Kris? My, my, my," Michelle grins approvingly and gives me a wink and it makes me want to squirm.

"You're going out on a date?" Vero asks, wide eyed. She's so cute and naïve.

"No, I'm going to his place after the game and no, before you ask, I don't expect to get fed…food, if you know what I mean," I add, sliding further down in my seat and pulling the hood of my jacket up when all the girls make that '_oooh'_ sound that says they know _exactly_ what I mean.

* * *

><p>I don't remember how I got here and that is the god's honest truth. The rain is sleeting down and it's dark and I should have had someone else drive me home. All the street lights seem really bright and the lines on the road are hard to follow and worst of all it makes my head hurt when I try to concentrate. That still doesn't explain why I ended up here. This isn't my house.<p>

What I do know is that there are lights on in the house and it looks warm and dry and I want to be inside. I also know whose house it is…, no, that's not right. It's not her house but she is inside.

I saw the cab drop her off. I wondered why she took a cab. She could have asked anyone for a ride home. She could have asked me but she wouldn't, I know that too. She's mad at me and I don't want her to be. There's something I want to explain to her…should explain but I don't want to do that either and that's why I'm still sitting in the driveway, _wanting_ to be inside but not _being_ inside.

The door opens and she steps out onto the front step and looks up at the rain and then down at her watch. She's wearing a black dress, short but not tight, and then she pulls her leather jacket closed over it and starts to zip it up. That's when she sees me. She looks up the street, like she's expecting someone and then back at me.

She opens her lips and shouts something but I don't hear it over the sound of the rain on the car or maybe it's the ringing in my ears. Or maybe, just maybe, it's the rush of blood through my veins when I watch her lips move. I keep thinking about kissing those lips but I'm also aware of the teeth that are behind them and a shudder goes through me entire body.

She takes another look up at the dark, menacing sky and then runs out in the rain to my vehicle and tugs the door open.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, her dark hair with that shock of purple in her bangs now plastered against her scalp as rain drips off the tip of her nose.

"I need you," I say and ignore the voice in the back of my head that says that I don't. I do. I know I do. "Can I come inside?" She looks up the street again and then with a roll of those grey blue eyes of hers', she holds the door open and lets me slip past her so that I can shuffle to the front door.


	6. Chapter 6

_okay I just about passed out writing this so I hope you feel the same reading it_**  
><strong>

**Chapter 6**

"He's just been sitting there like that for…," I looked down at my watch and then back to the spot where Sidney was sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly out at the rain. "I guess he's been like that for twenty minutes." I looked back to where Kris stood behind me in the doorway to the kitchen. He ran his hand through his long, disheveled dark hair and heaved a sigh.

"He can definitely be a moody bastard but this…," Kris shook his head and heaved another sigh. "I don't think it's good." That was something we could both agree on. I hadn't told the heartbreakingly handsome defenseman what Sid had said when I'd found him out in the driveway which, quite frankly, worried me more than his current still silence.

"Do you think the hit he took…?" I asked, not needing to finish the sentence to get a slow nod from the man at my shoulder.

"Oui, je le pense aussi," he agreed. "So, what do we do now?" His warm breath on the back of my neck sent a thrill down my spine and made things low in my body do the rumba. I felt his lips brush the nape of my neck, closed my eyes and cursed. I had been imagining the devastatingly sexy d-man naked for a few hours now and there was a little part of me that was having a total hissy fit at having the opportunity to see if my imagination came anywhere near the reality taken away from me. Still, it wasn't like I could just turn Sid out into the rain. Not in his current zombie like state. So even though it hurt like hell to do it, I reluctantly turned and directed Kris back towards the front door.

"I don't think he should be alone right now," I explained when Kris gave me that look that said he couldn't believe I was doing this, turning him down, as if I needed anyone else to tell me. I agreed entirely.

"But why you? Why did he come _here_ of all places?" he asked and it was very hard to look into those deep dark chocolate eyes that promised endless hours of smoldering, body liquefying passion and lie.

"I don't know. Why do you guys refuse to go to the doctor when you're sick? Maybe he just didn't want to admit to someone on the team that he's hurt in case you told on him." Apparently this was the right answer as he shrugged his broad, muscular shoulders and tipped his head to the side as if he didn't have an argument for that.

"Well, chère, if he comes to his senses and leaves suddenly, you have my number, oui?" I nod and for one, seemingly eternal retina searing moment he just looks at me and lets me see all of the things he'd had planned for me play out behind his dark, molten chocolate gaze.

I am _so_ going to kill Sidney Crosby.

I watch Kris get back in his sleek, low slung sports car and it's all I can do not to paw the glass as his car backs out of the driveway and then disappears down the street. As I lean my forehead against the cool, damp pane, I start to envision a number of slow, painful tortures that I can the Pens captain through in that might quench my thirst for revenge.

"I'm sorry if I ruined your plans for the evening." I turn around expecting to see him smirking at me as a spark of disappointment erupts into a flame in my stomach as I come to the sudden conclusion that this has all been planned. But as I round on him, ready to let him have it with both barrels but the expression facing me is hardly the mask of triumph I'm expecting. In fact, the way he leans in the doorway he looks tired and weak and utterly defeated.

"That's okay," I mutter, dialing down my desire to see his blood spilled on the kitchen floor. "Do you want a coffee or tea or something?" I ask, brushing by him and heading for the sink, turning it on and reaching for the kettle.

"I was thinking maybe I should lie down actually," I heard him say and turned around to see him stumble as he tried to turn back around. Swearing under my breath, I abandon the kettle, turn off the water and then, even though it's against my better judgment, walk over to where he's now leaning on the wall, slip one arm around his waist and reach for his arms with the other, draping his arm over my shoulder.

"I can't carry you up the stairs Crosby, you're gonna have to do some of the work." The Sidney I've met before should shake me off but this one doesn't. This one leans heavily into me and says nothing as we both shuffle towards the stairs. "I should call Mario or something," I say, mostly to myself as we mount the stairs. Sid stops and when he stops, I stop.

"No, please don't." He turns those caramel coloured eyes on me and damn if it's not exactly like looking at a Labrador puppy. "I just need to lie down, just for a while and I'll be fine. Just…just please don't tell anyone." This too is against my better judgment but I nod and we continue up the stairs in silence.

* * *

><p>When I wake up I know that it's the middle of the night. There's a sort of still silence that you only find in the early hours of the morning when it's still full dark and you should still be asleep. I roll over, looking for Violet, but she isn't beside me where, in a moment of weakness, I'd asked her to stay. Instead, she's over by the window, staring out into the dark.<p>

"Thanks for staying with me," I begin, meaning it. She doesn't even turn to look at me.

"Someone had to wake you up every couple of hours. I don't want you dying of some kind of aneurism in my house," she replies, sarcasm dripping from her lips as she turns to give me one of those looks that says that I'd better know she's doing me a favor. I don't need telling.

"It's not your house," I point out unhelpfully. She rolls her eyes and turns her attention back out the window. It must still be raining. Rain drops dot the window pane, looking like liquid silver.

"How is your head feeling now?" she asks quietly, her tone softening enough that I know she's asking because she's actually worried. That makes two of us.

"I have a pounding headache," I reply honestly, rubbing at a spot at the back of my head that feels a lot like there's some little guy in there working away with a big wooden mallet.

"Is this your first concussion?" she asks, turning towards me but keeping her back against the wall and her arms across her chest like a bulletproof vest. I shake my head and then wish I hadn't. My stomach rolls and I need to close my eyes and silently count to ten while the urge to throw up passes.

"I had one when I played in Rimouski," I tell her because at this instance there isn't a lot of point in my lying to her. "That time I didn't feel it until the next day."

"Yeah well, you shouldn't have gone back out there you fucking idiot," she sighs, shaking her head at me while her mouth turns up on one side while she makes that disappointed 'tsking' sound before crossing to the side of the bed I'm sitting up on. She reaches over to turn on the table lamp and I wince, knowing the light is going to hurt. Her hand pauses and she narrows her eyes at me and then let's her hand fall away. "You should let a doctor have a look at you Crosby." I shrug. She's probably right but I know what will happen if I do. I'll be out for ten games and everyone will be pussyfooting around me like I'm a fucking leper.

"We have a travel day tomorrow…I'll see the team doctor tomorrow," I tell her and wonder if I'm lying now. I think I am.

"Well you should probably get some more sleep," she tells me, eyeing me like she's expecting my head to start spinning exorcist style. I slide back down under the covers. My head feels better the minute it hits the pillow. She turns to head towards the door and suddenly I'm afraid of the dark, or being alone, or both.

"Can you stay, just until I fall asleep?" I ask. Her hand pauses above the door handle and I feel like a giant pussy but I'm praying that she agrees anyway.

"Okay," she agrees quietly and now I feel all better, like when your mom kisses your scraped knee and suddenly it doesn't sting anymore. I close my eyes and listen to her walk around the bed. I feel the mattress dip as she sits on the edge and I lie as still as I can, trying to be non-threatening while she slides over until I can feel the heat of her body, but not so close that we're actually touching. I know she's just lying there, staring at the back of my head, wondering why she got picked for this duty. I'd tell her, but I'm not really sure either.

* * *

><p>Sometime, just when the sky is turning that shade of lavender before the sun actually breaks the plane of the horizon, I realize that I've been sleeping, or more specifically that I'm now awake and that I wasn't a minute ago. I know that because I'm sure that a minute ago I was Rapunzel and Kris was Flynn Rider and he was calling for me to let my hair down and now there's a hand on my hip and a pair of lips pressed to the nape of my neck.<p>

My first reaction is to bolt out of the bed and he must realize it the minute I start to because his grip on my hip gets firm and with one hand he presses me down into the mattress so I can't move and somehow his other arm comes up from beneath me to hold me a death grip against the solid wall of his body that is very much awake.

My brain is screaming 'no, no,noooo' but my body, before I can even make sense out of what is going on, is already scooting back towards his while my mouth, tongue and larynx are banding together like a bunch of traitors and making happy little moaning noises as his hand moves up from my rib cage to cup my breast.

I tell myself that that I must be delirious from lack of sleep or that I'm just having a weak moment as he's trying to thank me for taking care of him but the only thought that I truly cling to as being half assed acceptable is that he's trying to bribe me to keep schtum. But even that hardly seems acceptable to me. I don't do damaged. Weak and injured is not what turns me on, and yet, as his fingers make short work of the snap and zipper on my jeans, I don't make a single, solitary move to stop him. My libido has overruled my brain by reminding me how good it's felt before and tempting me with the idea that it can be that good again.

While one hand palms my breast and the other slides into my panties, Sid shows his dexterity by using one of his powerfully built legs to roll me onto my back and the next thing I know I'm staring up into those ever shifting mood ring eyes of his.

"You're wet already," he whispers, his voice soft with astonishment as he slides two fingers over the sensitive bundle of nerves that causes me to shudder involuntarily.

"I was dreaming about Kris when you woke me up," I tell him. It's a lie. I wish it wasn't but it is. Not that I was dreaming about Sid either. I had actually been in the middle of a Salvatore brother sandwich, but I'm not going to admit that to him either. I wait for the switch to be thrown, for the gentleness I can see in his eyes a moment to suddenly be gone and for his almost golden eyes to become dark and his full lips to thin out into a hard, angry line. None of that happens. Instead, his eyes get round and he starts to gnaw at the corner of his bottom lip where there's a buildup of scar tissue from the nervous habit. "Oh hell," I shut my eyes and turn my face away. "Fine, I wasn't," I admit as I feel him withdraw his hand from down my pants. As much as I would prefer the biting, scratching angry sex that baiting him might earn me, I can't stand the kicked puppy look either.

"If you want him…," he begins and I feel the bed move as he gets up to his knees. I look up at him and consider telling him the truth; that I would, that I'd like Kris and Jordan and Max, all at the same time. Instead, I reach out and hook my fingers into his belt loops.

"Right now, I want you," I admit, letting my gaze slowly travel from the lethal looking bulge in his jeans slowly up over the rumpled shirt with the seams that are barely able to contain the breadth of his shoulders to the girth of his pale neck that practically begs to be marked. Finally, I meet his gaze and now the smoldering heat is there in the gold flecked orbs and my pussy clenches in response.

I hold his gaze as I slowly inch the zipper down on his pants and then slide my hand inside. I see his gaze lose focus as my fingers curl around the hard girth of his cock, his mouth open in a soundless gasp as I slide my hand down and cup his balls.

Keeping a firm grip on his dick, I scoot down the bed until I can guide it into my mouth. I roll my eyes up to watch his jaw go slack as his cock slides over my tongue. He emits a moan as the velvet soft head of his dick hits the back of my throat and then I feel his fingers tangle in my short hair as he begins to slowly rock his hips forward.

* * *

><p>Her mouth feels like heaven. This hadn't been what I'd been looking for when I'd found myself in the driveway last night but when I woke up curled around her warm body, I decided that I didn't care if my brain actually turned into scrambled eggs. Right in that moment I didn't care about hockey or ever playing again; all I wanted was her.<p>

"Violetttttte," I moan her name as she digs her fingernails into my sack and gently drags her teeth up the length of my dick. She smiles around my cock and then, so gradually it feels like everything is moving in ultra slow motion, she swallows me whole, the back of her throat closing around the head of my cock and making me go momentarily blind. "Shiiiiiit baby, soooo gooood," I sigh, grabbing hold of her thick black hair and fucking her mouth while she rolls my balls in her hand. Her mouth is warm and wet and she hums around my reed like she's enjoying her work, making my balls tighten and threaten to explode and I feel her finger start to snake back towards my asshole and my sphincter squeezes shut. "Nnnno," I gasp, almost reluctantly as I remember the mind blowing, life altering orgasm her digit inserting manipulation propelled me into last time. "I want to…I want to…be inside you."

"You are." My dick slips out of her moist lips with an audible 'pop' and bounces in front of her face as she looks up at me, her fingers still curled both around the root of my cock and around my sack. She digs her fingernails into my balls just enough to send a warning shudder up my spine, as if to let me know that I am at her mercy, that I am her prisoner.

As if I didn't know. If she only knew…. If she had any idea that I'd almost said that I wanted to make love to her. If she only knew that I've thought about little else but her since the first rush of lust and adrenalin took over and sent me crashing into her arms like a tidal wave heating a beach.

But I don't tell her any of those things and I certainly don't admit that at this moment she could reach into my chest and pull out my beating heart and it would have her name on it. Instead, I move down the bed and take her jeans with me, dragging them off of her legs and tossing them onto the floor behind me. Taking that as a cue, she tugs her shirt over her head and tosses it somewhere on the floor and then lies there in front of me like the Reclining Venus from a Titian painting, right down to her come hither gaze that stokes the flame already burning in my belly for her.

I drag my own shirt over my head and toss it aside, and then shove my pants down over my hips, kicking them off in my eagerness to reacquaint myself with the tight, wet heat of her pussy. Sliding my hands beneath the cool, pale flesh of her thighs, I run my hands up the back of her legs as I guide them up over my shoulders, staring, the whole time, at the glistening pink prize between. With her ankles on my shoulders and my hands under the smooth, firm curve of her ass, I nestle myself between her thighs and then, with a long, low groan, slide my cock into her snug, hot tunnel.

Every time I think it will be easier this time. Every time I bury my dick deep inside of her I think that this time I won't feel like a fourteen year old virgin again. Every time I'm wrong. I silently count to ten as the room spins around me and my balls snug up threatening to explode. I breathe through the first urge to release before I slowly begin to move. I bring my hips back until I'm barely inside of her at all and then as slowly as I can, I slide myself back into her, watching my dick get swallowed up by her pussy.

When I let my gaze travel back up her curvaceous, pale form, I realize she is watching our joining with the same sort of rapt attention, her bottom lip pierced by her front teeth. I suddenly have the strongest urge to run my tongue over her lip, to feel the indentations from her teeth for myself.

Her eyes roll up to meet mine as if she'd felt the weight of my gaze and her bottom lip rolls out from under her teeth, tempting and swollen. Letting her legs go, I pour myself over her and hunt for her lips with mine. She wraps me up in her arms and offers up her mouth like a trophy and I take it like one, like I want to take it for a victory lap.

I drink from her mouth, like it's my only source of life giving oxygen as our bodies melt tighter together until it feels like we're not two bodies but one. When my hips draw back, hers drop. When my hips roll forward, hers raise to meet mine. She is the socket to my plug.

My head swims, a dizzy spell holding me in its' clutches. Groaning, I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my head in her neck. I'm trained to power through pain but nausea and fainting…not as much. I smash my fist into the mattress beside her head in frustration. I wanted this to last longer. I wanted to make her cum a dozen times. Now I can't.

"You okay?" Her voice pours into my ear like warm honey. My chest tightens. I want to lie. I want to ignore the way my stomach is churning and the little white lights at the corners of my vision but I can't.

"No," I admit, the sound of my voice muffled by her fragrant skin and strangled by my own clenched jaw. I feel her hands push against my shoulders, her body trying to wriggle from beneath mine but I keep her pinned and growl at her to stop. "I want you to cum," I insist, rolling my hips forward again and burying myself deep inside of her.

"Jesus Crosby, I don't want you passing out one me," she hisses, pushing up against my shoulders again. She's strong, for a girl, but not strong enough to move me.

"Cum for me," I growl again, slamming into her with force this time, hearing my body meet hers with the slapping sound of flesh meeting flesh. She gasps, the sound of air expelled by her lungs involuntarily as I ram into her with short, hard thrusts and her nails dig into my shoulders. I curse, but the pain helps to restrict the waves of vertigo that are painting patterns of light behind my eyelids. "Again," I pant as I drive my hips forward, all of my muscles straining as if I'm trying to hold the puck against the boards with two six foot plus defensemen at my back.

"Again?" she asks, raising her hips to meet mine which is good but unnecessary now.

"Nails," I wheeze through clenched teeth as my stomach tries to climb up through my esophagus. I'm going to be sick and soon. Her nails dig into my shoulder blades and it's my turn to gasp. The pain turns the little white lights dancing in the corner of my vision red and chases my stomach back somewhere under my ribs. I blow out a long breath and then I can feel it, how close I am and how the walls of her pussy are closing around me like a fist and then she arches her back and her soft, round tits press up against my chest and her heels dig into the back of my thighs.

"Yessss, ohfuckSidneyyesssss," she cries out and her nails drag up my back. Pain shoots through my entire body and I have a single moment of absolute clarity so that I can open my eyes and look down at her as she comes apart beneath me.

She's beautiful. For the first time I see beyond the darkly kohl rimmed eyes and the tattoos and see a woman with eyes the colour of a kitten's fur and skin as pale and luminescent as the moon and I know that she hates me and that I…that I love her more than anything in the world.


	7. Chapter 7

_I'm sure we_**'**_re all relieved to hear that Sid expects to be back this season. I hope it's soon_

**Chapter 7  
><strong>

"Can I help with that?" I look up from the dough I'm kneading and reluctantly meet his gaze. He looks disheveled, like he's slept in his clothes but I know that's only the half of it and the look in his eyes says he does too.

"This?" I dig the heels of my palms into the cool elastic dough and shake my head. "I'm almost done with this before it needs to rest but…," I glance over at the cookies on the cooling rack, "you can put those in one of those Tupperware containers to take with you." It's a not very veiled hint that it's time for him to go and that I don't want to talk about last night. I keep my eyes on the dough in front of me, punching the air out of it, folding it in on itself. The last few weeks I'd imagined his face every time I did this but I can't conjure up his features under my knuckles this morning and that makes me hit the dough even harder.

I hear the lid of the tin come off followed by the sounds of cookies sliding against its thin aluminum surface and I pray that those will be the only sounds I hear. When he clears his throat I roll my eyes and curse quietly.

"Do you always do this, bake when you're stressed?"

"Who says I'm stressed? I'm not the one who has to go on a plane and pretend to be normal," I remind him, rolling the dough up again and wrapping it in cellophane to rise for a second time.

"But you are wishing that I left already?" he asks and I can feel the weight of his gaze as I dust the cutting board with flour and grab the next ball of dough. As I unwrap it, I try to think of a nice way to say that yes, I had hoped he'd be gone when I woke up.

"You're going to be late," I point out instead, glancing purposely over at the clock above on the stove. "Doesn't some kind of hole open up in the time space continuum if Sidney Crosby's late for the team bus?" I look over at him, expecting that 'you're not funny' unhappy look on his face. He looks unhappy yes, but not in that pissed off sort of way that I'm used to. He looks…stricken. "You're afraid." It comes to me all at once, the willingness to help, his not flying out the front door when he sees what time it is. "You're afraid it's worse than even you know it is." I brush the flour from my hands on my apron and then untie it and drape it over the back of a chair as I walk over to where he is still standing, still as a mannequin, staring at me as if he wants to ask for help but can't make his mouth form the words. "You need to tell someone. You need to see someone about this," I tell him, searching his eyes for signs of focus but his pupils are wide with fear and his always pale skin is almost translucent so that I can see the blood pumping in time with the wild beating of his heart.

"They'll stop me from playing," he whispers it as if he'd afraid he'll be overheard and it will come true.

"Then don't play. You know what happens to guys that get hit again. Hello, Savard? Kariya? Do I need to keep going?" I grasp his face in my hands as I watch spirals of fear spin in his eyes. His hands reach up, slowly, and take mine, but he doesn't try to pry my hands away. He just stands there, his hands over mine, staring back at me, breathing like he's about to have a panic attack. "Crosby, I'm serious. Call whoever you need to and tell them you're hurting."

"I think I love you."

I blink at him, waiting for the sarcastic smirk that will surely follow that obviously fallacious statement. I wait for him to laugh, to take off this little boy scared mask and show me the caustic Crosby I know, but he doesn't. He stares at me like he's actually waiting for me to say it back.

"Okay, now I know that's the bump on your head talking," I mutter, trying to pull my hands free but he proves again that whether he's experiencing dizzy spells or not, he's far from weak. The full length of his body is suddenly pressed to mine and I know he's going to kiss me and I have a split second to stop him but am too frozen by shock to make my mouth move and then his mouth is plastered to mine.

It's a kiss that curls my toes and makes my panties fizz like a Zotz candy. The heat from his body transfers to mine and I start to think so does his dizzy spell. When he releases me enough to come up for air I have to hold onto him or fall to the floor.

"I know how I feel," he growls, aiming that stony glare of his that reminds me more of the Crosby I know, the one who thinks he can stare down an opponent or make me weak in the knees just with his eyes. He's right, but that's beside the point.

"You don't _know_ anything," I snap, pushing him away and curling in on myself at the same time, wrapping my arms around myself in some kind of vain attempt at protecting myself from the way he's making my stomach feel. "You're not yourself," I point out, turning to go back to the safety of my bowls and measuring spoons. "You're confused, that's all. In a day or so, this will pass. You'll feel…well, you won't feel whatever you think you're feeling now," I continue because I can't…no, _won't_ say the word because it's ridiculous, absurd and preposterous.

"You're wrong," he replies in a snarl that sounds like it should be coming from a rabid dog and then I hear him grabbing the tin and forcing the top back on with his fist. I jump but I don't turn to look. I grab a bowl and start dumping flour into it. I'm not measuring. I'm not even sure what I'm going to do with it. I just know that I need to be doing something other than walking back over to him, grabbing him by the lapels and forcing my tongue down his throat. "We'll talk about this when I get back," he adds in that same threatening sort of rumble as he heads out of the kitchen, stomping his feet the whole way.

"No, we won't," I call after him, cutting off a quarter cup of cold butter into the flour and then digging my fingers into it. I wince when the door slams and don't breathe again until I hear his car spin out of the driveway, his wheels spinning all the way down the street.

* * *

><p>"How's the noggin?"<p>

Tanger leans over the back of the seats and offers me a Reese's cup. I shake my head and then take a deep breath in through my nose and force myself not to blink, never mind wince.

"Fine, good," I mumble, staring at the screen on my PSP. I'm hunting for Max. He's killed me three times already; he's due.

"You uh…you get whatever you needed last night?" I'd almost forgotten he'd been there or maybe I'd just conveniently expunged that particular fact from my mind along with the idea that she'd intended to go out with him. An image of him moving over her briefly flickers like an old movie in my imagination and then I blink it away. That will never happen; over my dead body.

"I guess you could say that," I reply. I want to tell him that I made her scream my name but that would be discourteous to her and would denigrate what actually happened. I know what happened. No matter what she says out loud I know that she does too.

"So what was the deal mon ami?" he asks, giving my shoulder a shove. "Cookies and cupcakes make it better or what?" He wants to know that I haven't fucked her. If I was Max, or Jordan, I'd lay out all the gory details now so that he's crystal clear on just exactly how intimately I know Violet but it's not like that, or at least it isn't like that now.

"Yeah, her muffins are fabulous." I hear Flower's sharp intake of breath next to me and I don't have to look over to know that he's shocked and not only by the double entendre. He's shocked that I've been with her, that I would be with her. Not as shocked as I am. I can guarantee that.

I hear Kris slide back into his seat and I can feel his glare boring holes in my back right through the seats. I don't care as long as he's clear that I've already staked out that particular territory and that she isn't to be treated like a puck; passed around from one teammate to the next.

"She's mine," I whisper, to myself but I'm okay if he hears it too.

* * *

><p>"Vi, you with us?" I blink and realize I've been caught day dreaming and the executive chef is looking murderously over at where I'm burning the living shit out of the top of a crème brûlée. I curse and quickly turn off the torch, grab the offending tart and toss it in the sink.<p>

"Sorry," I mumble as I grab another one, giving my head a shake before turning the torch back on and aiming it at the cooled custard.

"Sorry? Fuck me! It's only both of our reputations on the line out there. What the fuck is up with you?" I look up at him and just stare. I can't tell him the truth and I can't think of a single lie because my brain is full of only one fucking thing; Sidney fucking Crosby.

"Sorry, tired. I'm fine," I mumble and then tear my gaze away from the veins throbbing in Richard's forehead. I know I'm supposed to be one of the few people he can rely on in this kitchen and that I can't be a poor example like that, spacing out during service, but I can't quite stop myself from thinking that if he knew, if anyone knew, that they would understand. I mean, it's not every day that the crown prince of the NHL declares his love for someone and I'm willing to bet a substantial amount of money that no one would never, in a hundred million years, think that that someone would be me; least of all me.

"Well do me a favor and fucking try and keep it the fuck together will you?" Richard growls and I just nod. I will, because I'm a fucking professional and because the next time I space out with a torch in my hand it might be my apron that I burn off.

That might not be a bad thing, I think, amusing myself with the idea of Sidney being grossed out by a large burn scar on my stomach. That would be pretty at the house on the lake in the summer.

"Oh fuck don't you dare start thinking about that," I hiss to myself, shaking my head and laughing. Oh yeah, I can see it now. A glossy spread in Hello magazine, me with all my tats and piercings and Sid in his pink Lacoste polo shirt and khaki pants. I bet that would go over with Bettman and all his other little troll friends about as well as a turd in a swimming pool. Not exactly the cute Arian princess I'm sure they're all hoping for.

Still, I can see myself falling for the Sid that left the house fuming. Not the self centered, egomaniacal I am the King of the World Sid and not the staring into the darkness helpless kitten Sid, but something in between. That Sid, I could see myself with.

Yeah, when hell freezes over and Beelzebub starts giving out popsicles.

"Ruin one more of those Vi and I'll make you eat all of them," Richard snarls as he passes close behind me with a tray of chocolate dipped fruit from the freezer. Those, along with the crème brûlée will be served with pink champagne. After all, Valentine's day is only a month away.

I look down at the desert I'm working on and pull the torch away just in time to leave a nice caramel colour on top. Jesus my imagination really is getting the better of me. With shaking hands, I put the torch aside and take several deep breaths.

'_He's just a guy'_ I remind myself silently, and no matter what he says in his current state of concussion induced disorientation, Sidney Crosby is not someone I would even want to consider having a relationship with. He's pompous and self centered and a total wuss. I definitely can't see him at a Brody Dalle or an Emile Autumn concert. We have nothing in common…other than great sex which I'm sure would be just as good if not better with Letang.

"Are you gonna get those deserts out tonight Vi, or are you just gonna sit there and stare at them?" This time when Richard hollers at me across the kitchen I jump, nearly knocking the whole tray over and that is enough to focus my attention on the task at hand.

"Shit, I'm coming!" I call back and slip my hands under the tray to bring the tray to the pass.

* * *

><p>"You sure you're good to go out there Sid? You're looking a little slow." I don't look up from unlacing my skates. I'm afraid if I do that Dave will see something in my eyes and tell me to get back into street clothes. I'd felt fine an hour ago, but after the warm up my head is pounding and I can feel the chicken parm I had for dinner trying to crawl out of my stomach.<p>

"I'm good," I lie, toeing off one boot and reaching for the laces of the other. "Groin's just a little tight that's all." That's an easy diversion. It's an ongoing issue and one I know they'll believe every time.

"Well make sure you see Scott now, make sure he checks you out. Get taped up if you have to," the Coach adds. I nod without looking up so that he won't see that my eyes are closed. I don't need to see to unlace my skates. I do it by rote, purely out of habit. I could put on and take off all of my gear with my eyes closed, just by feel, I've done it so long and right now it feels better to have my eyes closed. The room doesn't spin quite so much.

"Get too much sun today Cap?" Gronk asks, reaching down the aisle with his stick to give me a little shove. I worry more about giving myself away to him or any of the other guys I've known a long time so I force a smile onto my face, grab a wad of used hockey tape and toss it at him.

"I wasn't the one lying on the beach whistling at girls," I point out which puts the focus on Jordo, which is exactly what I was aiming for. While everyone's giving the big farm boy a hard time about his raging hormones, I tug my jersey over my head and drop my throbbing head into my hands.

"Es tu sûr que tu es d'accord?" Predictably it's Flower who quietly asks the question I keep asking myself.

"I'll be fine," I tell him without raising my head. It's the answer I keep giving myself. I'm hoping by the time my blades cut into the ice I'll believe it.

* * *

><p>"Violet!"<p>

I'm sitting on my bike, my helmet in my hands, the engine running when my phone vibrates. I don't even look to see who it is when I thumb the button and lift it to my ear. I'm assuming it's Richard telling me I've left a spatula somewhere and I'm ready to tell him to stick his fucking job up his fucking ass when I hear Veronique's panicked voice on the other end of the line.

"What's up buttercup? Did Marc play like a sieve tonight or something?" I'm trying to keep the tone light, partly because I'm tired and can't deal with anyone else's drama and partly because when she sounds like this it's usually because she doesn't want to be alone in that big house of theirs and tonight I know I'm not in the mood to be a good friend and keep her company. I smell like a deep fryer after all of the beignets I made tonight and all I want is a long soak, and my bed.

"It's Sidney." The bemused smile is erased off of my face as I hear his name and something strange happens in the pit of my stomach.

"What? What about him?" I try and play it cool, not wanting to sound as panicked as Vero does, but I can hear the trembling in my voice and I know it's not from the vibration of the bike beneath me. A hundred visuals race through my imagination, everything from an opened jugular bleeding all over the ice to a plane crash and my heart is beating wildly.

"He got hit again. He went down and he's hurt." I want to snap. If she was in front of me I might have slapped her. It's not an answer and it doesn't do anything to erase the gory visuals in my head.

"How bad is it?" I ask in a low growl.

"Well…he's asking for you. I'm heading to the airport and…." I don't let her finish. I thumb the end button on my phone, slide it into my jacket pocket, pick up my helmet and pull it on. With a kick of the clutch and a twist of the throttle the engine roars beneath me and then the restaurant is suddenly behind me and all I can hear is the roar of the v-twin beneath me as I race through the dark, empty streets.


	8. Chapter 8

_2 chapters of this in a week? well it had to be done and seeing the man himself looking healthy didn't hurt my imagination either!_

Chapter 8

"No." My hand pauses as I reach for the dial on the stereo. I glance back and over at him. His eyes are closed and his full lips are pulled into a thin tight line. "No music. No sound. Just…just drive." I open my mouth to ask, not for the first time if he should be going home or to the hospital but then I shut my mouth again. He said home, so we're going home. Not his home though apparently. Mine, the one I have for another week. I reach up to adjust the rear view mirror and sigh as I see Godard, who's already on injured reserve, sitting astride my bobber. It suits him and it makes me feel a little glum but the minute he heard the rumble of the engine Sidney didn't want to go anywhere near it which is why I'm driving his SUV and he's in the passenger seat. "And don't drive too fast," he mutters, his fingers pressed against his temples. I raise my eyebrow at him but he doesn't see my displeasure with his eyes closed. I open my mouth to tell him that I do know how to drive but he opens his eyes, just a slit, and the silent plea in his gaze makes me shut my mouth again and back the car out of the space, making a mental note that if I ever come across Victor Hedman to kick him in the family jewels.

As I ease into every corner and am careful not to give the top heavy vehicle the juice going away from the lights, I keep stealing glances at him curled up in the passenger seat like an injured dog; scowling at the world like it's the fault of every lamppost and pedestrian that's he's hurting. At every stop sign and every red light I have to fight the urge to reach over to try and smooth the pain from his piqued features. I'm almost certain, just by the way he's holding himself like a coiled spring, that one wrong word, one well meaning but too quick movement will start a fight and, for once, I don't want to fight with Sidney Crosby.

As the city falls behind us and we begin to wind our way through the twisting and winding suburban streets he reaches for my hand where it's resting on the armrest between us. He laces his fingers with mine but when I glance over his eyes are still closed and his head is tipped back, almost as if he's asleep. I leave my hand where it is until we pull into the driveway and then, even after I've taken the keys from the ignition, he doesn't make a move to get out of the car.

"You're really not okay are you?" I ask as quietly as I can. A satirical smile tugs at the corners of his full mouth.

"Isn't that what you've always thought?" he asks in a weary sounding voice, turning to aim that mocking smile at me. I start to laugh but when I look in his eyes, I don't see even a hint that he's joking.

"I'm asking about your head," I reply quietly, sensing that I'm being led into a trap.

"And that's all I'm good for," he adds, letting go of my hand and turning to climb out of the car. I watch him walk through the sleet, staring after him with my mouth hanging open. The way he'd held my hand was almost tender and then this…? It's a contradiction that leaves me feeling like I'm suffering from a bad case of whiplash.

"If I'm so fucking awful," I called after him, climbing out of the vehicle, "then what are you doing here?" He turned, the cold rain plastering his dark hair onto his forehead and making him squint and yet I couldn't miss the revulsion in his eyes. It stopped me in my tracks.

"Well it's your fucking fault so the least you could do is look after me," he snaps back at me and then turns and continues to head towards the front door as if it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to actually let him in.

"My fault? _My_ fault?" I close the distance between us until we're both standing under the small peaked roof over the front door that's supposed to offer some kind of shelter from the elements but the wind has picked up the rain and is blowing it sideways so that it's coming at us like tiny sharp knives, cutting through our clothes right to our skin. My leather jacket and jeans should afford me some kind of protection but I'm already shivering, though I think that might partly be because I'm so fucking angry right now. "How in the fuck is some big goon hitting you from behind my fucking fault?" I snap, my keys dangling from my fingers but I don't want to open the door yet. I don't want him following me inside if he's going to be such a fucking child.

"Well if you hadn't made me feel like such a fucking stooge when I left the other day…," he begins and I can't even let him finish before I'm doubled over laughing.

"_Me_? What the fuck did _I_ do? You're the one who was babbling on and on like some lovesick teenager!" I hadn't wanted to bring it up. In fact I'd wanted to forget about it, sure he would have, but now that he's brought up what happened I'm not about to let him make it sound as if any of what happened had been my idea.

"_Lovesick_…?" he closes his eyes and tips his head back and grumbles a long line of curses under his breath before turning his furious gaze back on me. "I didn't hear you complaining when you were screaming out my name at the top of your lungs," he smirks, a self satisfied expression that I'm certain would look more at home on Max's face then the usually dead pan stare Crosby wears around me when he's in a fighting mood.

"God Crosby, don't flatter yourself. I've never screamed anyone's name out and I can get myself off twice as fast as you ever could," I sigh, sliding my keys back into my pocket, crossing my arms and leaning against the opposite wall making it clear I'm in no hurry to get inside. Right now I'd rather freeze to death than let him inside.

"Fucking god!" He moves quickly for someone who's supposed to be suffering from vertigo and blurred vision and suddenly his hand is denting the aluminum siding on the house and the tip of his nose is suddenly pressed to mine. "Why are you such a god damned fucking bitch?" he hisses, spittle spraying onto my face, his gaze livid.

"Because you're such a fucking pussy," I grin back at him, not blinking, not even flinching when he lets out another growl before pushing back and turning away to slam his fist into the other wall. "Yeah, keep that up, because you're not injured enough, break your hand too you fucking self centered, egotistical baby," I sigh, shaking my head at him. "But then I suppose you'd just blame me for that too." He emits another growl and then, as I watch, all the tension ebbs out off his shoulders and he stands there, his back still to me, breathing heavily.

"Why?" he asks, sounding tired and defeated. "Why are we doing this?"

"What, fighting? Why are you asking me? _You_ started it," I remind him. His shoulders droop further and I hear him blow out a long breath.

"Maybe…I don't know. Can we just go inside and..."

"I don't know that I want you inside. I don't know why you're here at all," I remind him.

"I told you I got hurt because…." I hold up my hand, sigh and shake my head.

"_Without_ blaming me. I wasn't there. I wasn't even watching the fucking game. I was working and besides," I point out a little coldly and probably a little unnecessarily, "I told you that you shouldn't go, that you shouldn't be playing, so if your head wasn't in the game Crosby, the only person that you have to blame is yourself."

* * *

><p>I know she's right, or at least part of my brain does. The other part wants to hurt her or at least to press her up against the wall and make her beg for mercy.<p>

I wanted her to be crying. I wanted her to take me in her arms and tell me everything was going to be alright. I wanted her to be more than just a little bit concerned when I stepped off that plane. Instead she's been, at worst argumentative and at best silent. This isn't how this was supposed to happen.

"Can we just go inside?" I ask quietly, trying to keep my voice calm and level.

"Why? So you can berate me some more? Or so you can hog the sheets and snore the roof off?" she asks, sounding gruff and short tempered. I know the feeling. I'm running out of patience myself and I'm cold, which is _not_ a good combination.

"Violet my head is splitting and I just need to sit down and…and I don't have anywhere else to go." I feel like I'm choking on humble pie but she only sniffs like she doesn't believe me and doesn't make a move to open the door.

"Look, why don't I just take you to Mario's and his wife and their brood of little Lemieux's can look after you?" she offers, sounding sincere as well as drained and I remind myself that she'd been working in a hot, bustling kitchen before she waited in an empty airport with the strong but usually silent Godzy and the overly chatty Vero. She's undoubtedly tired and I know I've already pressed my luck. Sucking in a deep breath I take another bite of humble pie.

"I want to be here…with you." I hold my breath as I turn to face her, feeling just like a I did the first time I handed a girl I liked a valentine's card I'd spent an hour trying to pick out. I'm expecting another rebuke, but when she lifts her gaze to meet mine I'm surprised to see that not only has the fight gone out of her eyes, but that the gaze staring back at me reminds me of the look in a dog's eyes when it's been in the pound too long; a little suspicious but a little fearful too. "I know you've got no reason to trust me," I begin and she rolls those grey blue eyes of hers, a response that I guess I deserve. "Nathalie would fuss and even though they'd try not to the girls would make noise and…and you won't, it's that simple." '_And I want you to hold me and I've already been weak in front you'_ I want to add but I don't. I just wait for her to make up her mind and when she does, she turns, digs her keys out of her pocket and slides them into the lock.

"I better not regret this Crosby," she says quietly as leads me inside. '_Yeah, me neither'_ I think as I follow her in.

* * *

><p>He'd agreed to sleep in the guest room but I'm not surprised when I wake up in the early hours of the morning feeling like I'm being drowned in the clutches of a Grizzly. The entire length of his body is pressed against mine and one of his legs is thrown over both of mine so that I couldn't move even if I tried, plus the quilt is pulled up past my chin and between the heat being thrown off by the giant hot water bottle that is Sidney Crosby and the fact that all of that heat is being held in by the eider down quilt, I feel like a burrito in a brick oven; a burrito in a sweltering brick oven being poked with a stick.<p>

I try to adjust my position so that his morning wood isn't poking into the small of my back, but as soon as I try to move, his entire body clamps down around mine and then I can barely breathe, let alone move. So I lie there, wondering exactly how long it will take for me to be declared legally brain dead from lack of oxygen, and listen to his deep, even breathing. It occurs to me, after I feel the first trickle of sweat down my tailbone that it's possible he's developed a brain bleed and is currently in a coma and my body will be found rotting underneath his when the co-owner of the restaurant comes back from vacation.

I'm imagining the headlines when he mumbles something under his breath and starts to hump the back of my thigh. I've seen the pictures of Patrick Kane past out cold in some tramp's bed and was sort of amazed at how quickly they spread through the social media world and wonder to myself how fast a picture of this moment, of Sidney Crosby in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs humping my Winnie the Pooh flannel pajama clad leg, would spread. Faster than Ebola I'm guessing.

"Sid you're suffocating me," I groan, digging my elbow into his ribs, which has about as much of effect as kicking a rock for stubbing your toe. In fact, I end up with my face pressed into the pillow when he rolls over, pinning me beneath him. I manage, just, to shove the pillow off of the bed but all of the squirming and the pressure of his body has left me with my knees tucked under me and my pajama bottoms shoved half way off of my ass and though he seems warm and relaxed above me as if he's still asleep, his body seems to know that he's half way home.

He mumbles something against the back of my neck and the vibration causes my nipples to get so hard they actually hurt. He rubs the outline of his erection against the crack of my ass and then I'm biting down on the sheet to try to stifle a moan.

"Get. Off. Me!" Pushing up with my shoulders and arching my back, I try to throw him off like I'm a bucking bronc, but just like a good cowboy he stays on, locking his arm around my waist and pressing his full weight against my back. "Sidney, nooo." My repudiation isn't very convincing, even to my ears it sounds more like a whine, but I know in my gut this isn't a good idea. This is exactly the reason that I insisted he sleep in the guest room.

"You don't really want that," he whispers, his voice husky and deep from sleep. I feel him adjusting, hear the snap of the elastic as he pulls those boxer briefs down and then the press of his cock against my skin. I start to speak, to object, but I know that whatever is going to come out of my mouth will be a lie. This isn't good, or rather it is or has the promise to be but it isn't a good idea. I'm way past being able to convince myself that if we do this it's just sex.

"Please." It's just one word and it could mean so many things. I want it to mean '_please stop'_ or '_please don't'_ but when he slides a hand between my thighs and roughly inserts his middle digit into my pussy I know that it also means '_please yes'_ and '_please more'_ as I choke out a sound that both sounds like a sob and a gasp. I shouldn't want this and I'm more than just a little bit ashamed that as soon as he touches me there I give up trying to talk either one of us out of this but as his other hand slides up my ribcage and under my tank top to capture one of my swinging breasts I'm ready to beg for it.

"So warm," he whispers, pinching my nipple and twisting it until I moan and press back against him, presenting like a god damned baboon in heat. I don't need to actually open up my mouth to ask him to fuck me, my body is already doing that a good job of begging all by itself. "So slippery," he adds, using his other fingers to spread my slick warm juices upward and around that other hole, the one that tightens at the idea of anything trying to slide into it.

He brushes it with his thumb, works at it for a moment and then when his forefinger swipes at my clit and my entire body jumps at the touch he shoves it in and I gasp out loud. I tell myself that what goes around comes around and I should take this taste of my own medicine like a man but when he pulls his finger out of my twat and lines his cock up instead my entire body constricts and I hold my breath and clench my teeth all at the same time.

He guides the velvety head of his cock from one hole to the other, teasing me and taunting me at the same time until he just stops and all at once shoves his cock balls deep in my cunt. I groan like a bad porn star, my forehead dropping onto my forearms as he holds himself there, deep and tight. It feels like the head of his dick is right behind my belly button. I've never felt so full in my entire life.

"Again," I whisper, choking on the word as he slides back until he is barely inside of me at all and then, with both hands on the small of my back, he rams the entire length of his dick back inside and presses all of the air out of my body at the same time. I gasp, like a fish out of water as I try and pull oxygen back into my lungs but there's no room. There is only him. There isn't room for anything else. "Again," I pant and this time as his hips swing forward I push back, meeting him half way and this time both of us grunt when his hips crash into the softer flesh of my ass.

"Fucking tight," he wheezes, his body pouring over my back until, for the first time in my life, I truly understand that saying 'beast with two backs'. I don't know where I begin and he ends, except for his teeth embedded in my shoulder and his fingers slowly circling my clit as he fucks me.

* * *

><p>For a few minutes my head doesn't pound. For a few, precious minutes the worst pain is the heaviness in my balls as cock swells inside of her tight, hot pussy. For a few minutes all I feel is her soft, smooth skin and all I know is the scent of sex hanging heavy in the air around us.<p>

But when I cum, when I wrap her up in my arms like she's the only thing in the entire world holding me afloat and I pour everything I have into her, it feels like something is trying to rip and tear and gnaw its way out of me. It feels like my head is coming apart from the inside. It feels like I'm going to be sick.

I clench my teeth and force myself to breathe through my nose until my sac is empty and my cock slips, soft and shriveled from her pussy and then I push her away, turn and heave my guts onto the floor. It's embarrassing and I wish like hell that she wasn't sitting on the bed behind me watching me do it. It gives a whole new meaning to hot mess and I feel like that fourteen year old kid back at Shattucks who threw up after one shot of tequila and the rest of the kids laughed.

She doesn't though. I feel her hands on my back, the warmth of her body close to mine as she holds me while I dry heave. There's nothing left to throw up but my stomach doesn't give up for a few minutes yet and the entire time she holds me, her cool finger pressed against my forehead, her warm body fending off the shivering that begins all at once.

"I'll…give me a minute and I'll clean up," I promise even as she wraps me back up in the quilt.

"I've got it. Lay down. Jesus Christ on a bike Crosby, do you even chew your food? I can see spaghetti and tomato sauce," she teases as the room spins around me. I lie on the bed, squeezing my eyes shut against the feeling of lying on a merry go round and tell myself that in a minute I'll be able to get up and help her. But a minute passes and then everything is quiet and dark and then I'm dreaming about the Stanley Cup


	9. Chapter 9

_to the reader that asked for a chapter on her birthday, sorry it's a bit late but better late than never? I hope you enjoy it_

**Chapter 9**

"Is that all you fuckin' do?"

I don't even look up from the dough I'm patting down, using my fingers to push the corners of the elastic feeling stuff out. When I'm happy with the thickness I reach for the square of butter that's been softening on the counter and begin to peel away the foil wrapping.

"Is hockey all you do?" I'd snap but I'm not really in the mood to fight. I've already been up, showered and shaved, for a couple of hours. I've had my coffee. If I hadn't maybe I'd bite, but I'm just not feeling it. I hear a chair scrape across the kitchen floor and reach over just in time to bat his hand away from the bowl of dried cranberries.

"You bake when you're stressed," he announces, like it's a fact. I smirk and shake my head.

"I bake when I'm happy. I also bake when I'm pissed. I eat ice cream when I'm stressed," I correct him. "You're good at hockey, so you do that. I'm good at baking so it's what I do." I shake a combination of brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon onto the buttered dough and then reach for the cranberries.

"Shouldn't you use raisons?" he asks, but in that tone like he knows better. Sidney Crosby, expert baker.

"Cranberries have more flavor and besides, they're better for you," I point out and slap his hand away when he reaches for the bowl again. "Plus I'm going to use a white chocolate icing and the tartness of the cranberries will help offset the sweetness," I add, grabbing a spoon out of the drawer and dipping it into the icing, topping it with a couple of the dried cranberries and offering it to him. I expect him to take the spoon but he doesn't. He just leans over and slides the spoon between his full lips and sucks the icing off, very slowly. My nipples tighten and start to ache.

I turn to put the spoon in the sink and run the water for a minute, just to give myself time to get my hormones under control. I'm letting the cool water run over my wrists and imagining myself standing on an ice flow in the middle of the arctic when I hear him clear his throat and I wince. Here it comes, the talk.

"So we should probably talk," he begins as I grind my teeth together.

"Nope," I reply quickly, turning the water off and running my hands down the front of my apron before I turn back to face him.

"No?" he asks looking both surprised and guilty as he's caught licking his fingers.

"No," I repeat, reaching into the flour to dust my hands and then beginning to slowly roll the dough. "You're gonna say you just wanna stay for a couple of days until you feel more like yourself and then I'm gonna bitch and complain and then give in so why don't we just skip the preliminaries and just agree that if you want to stay you can." I steel myself, waiting for him to ask about the sleeping arrangements but he just nods and stays silent so I go back to cutting the wheels of sugar and dough and putting them on the parchment paper covered cookie trays.

"Why do you dress like that?" I am grateful for the change of topic but as I turn to put the trays in the oven I find myself looking down at my well worn but much loved cargo shorts and converse high tops and wondering what he's talking about.

"You mean my apron?" I ask, deciding that my stained and flour covered 'kiss the cook' apron might be the offensive item to which he is referring.

"No," he rolls his caramel coloured eyes and then pointedly stares at my legs. I look down at my slightly faded, frayed cargo shorts and frown.

"I'm _cooking_," I point out, rolling my eyes and going back to clean up the mess I've made.

"But you looked…well, _better_ in that dress," he tells me. Shaking my head, I gather an armful of utensils and take them over to the sink.

"You're such a flirt Crosby," I deadpan, grateful to have the old, malicious Sid back to help erase all of the memories of his wide shoulders and sculptured abs from last night. "What do you think I should be wearing? A fucking twinset and pearls? No, wait, don't answer that, you're probably going to say yes," I sigh, running hot water into the sink and then squeezing liquid soap into it and watching the bubbles begin to overtake the bowls and spoons and measuring cups.

"I'll bet you're going to wear that to work," he adds, appearing at my side and picking up a tea towel. I glance over at him and shrug.

"Yeah, but then I'm going to put my chef's jacket over this," I say, plucking at worn white tank top, "and I'll have you know that it's fucking hot as Hades in a restaurant kitchen, so they're fucking lucky I'm not wearing hot shorts," I add and then wince. "_Don't_ even suggest it."

* * *

><p>When I told her that I didn't think it was wise that I drove myself to my appointment with the specialist, she stared at me like I'm trying to pull something and continued putting the cinnamon buns into a plastic container like she was thinking about it, or maybe waiting for me to say forget it and leave.<p>

When I don't she suggests that we take her bike. I think about saying no but I hear my conscience reminding me that beggars can't be choosers and shrug. She raises a single eyebrow like she's surprised that I don't argue and then handed me one of the containers and told me to get a better jacket than the hoody I was wearing.

Riding on the back of her ape barred bobber with the snarl of its engine filling my ears I'm surprised I'm not begging for her to stop the bike, pull it over and let me off. I'm even more surprised that I actually enjoy it, tip my head back and let the air rush over my face. I can't imagine what Mario or Shero would say if they could see me in a skullcap with my arms around her tiny waist roaring down the highway at breakneck speeds. It's probably against ten different sections of my contract and for once I don't care.

"You still got those cinnamon buns Crosby?" she yells over her shoulder at me at a stop light. I touch the outline of the long rectangular box that's shoved down the front of my jacket.

"Yeah," I yell back, "although I don't know if these are going to enough to bribe the trainers to say I'm good to go." I feel rather than actually hear her laugh and she shakes her head, her matte black helmet swinging back and forth.

"You thought I made those for you?" she revs the engine for a moment and then, as I feel the bike begin to jump ahead I grab her around the waist I hear her yell, "hate to tell you Crosby but you're not the centre of the fucking universe."

When we pull into the parking lot of the Consol and I'm getting off the bike she holds her hand out for the container. I pull it out of my jacket and realize that I'm reluctant to give it to her.

"Can I take just one?" I ask, looking at the thick sugary icing and the curls of solid white chocolate and remembering the heavenly smell that had filled the house when she'd taken them out of the oven.

"_No_ you can't," she laughs, taking the container and sliding it up under her black leather jacket. "There are people who need these _waaay_ more than you," she adds, kicking the kickstand up and out of the way and beginning to roll the bike backwards. "What time are you gonna be done with your head shrinker?"

"I don't know," I answer honestly, tugging my helmet off and tucking it under my arm.

"Fine, whatever. I'm not supposed to have my cell on at the hospital but text me when you're ready." I try to call out to her, to ask her who's in the hospital but she mimes that she can't hear me over the engine, then laughs and spins the back around and takes off across the parking lot, leaving a streak of burned rubber on the concrete behind her and me staring after her like some kind of love sick teenager.

* * *

><p>"Hey ladies," I call quietly as I make a show of leaving the container of cinnamon buns at the nurse's station as I walk past. I only get a few steps past when I hear the nurses converging like a venue of vultures on the sticky sweet treats behind me. The bribes work every time. They're the reason I can come here in off hours. "And hey to you, you sexy beast," I grin as I lean in to press a kiss to the cheek of the man in lying in the hospital bed attached to all the beeping and pinging monitors. I smooth his hair back and gaze into his big, blue eyes. "Did you miss me?" He blinks; once for yes. "Of course you did, you just want your sponge bath you dirty boy," I add with a wink, shucking my jacket and revealing the snug fitting white tank top beneath. His eyes get a little wider. I'm not wearing a bra.<p>

I promise him I'll be right back and then I go to fill the basin with water, being just as careful with the temperature as I would if I was heating a bottle for a baby. Not that it matters. Not that he can feel it. At least not from what the doctors have told me.

When I walk back into the room his eyes track me the entire way. I sometimes wonder if I'm doing the right thing, teasing him like this when he can't do a damn thing about it, but the look in his eyes tells me he's enjoying the view and that is, after all why I'm here, why I do this, for _him_.

Setting the basin down on one of those little rolling trolleys, I push the safety bar down and then climb up on the bed and reach for one of his arms. Slowly I run the washcloth up the inside of his arm and then even more slowly down the outside, tracing the outlines of every tattoo that map his still muscular arm, the sleeve that I had copied onto my arm while he'd been in that coma that had seemed to last a year, though I know it had only been day. That was a long time ago, but our matching sleeves, that's my piece of the man I knew that I take with me, that no one, not even the drunk driver that left him like this, can take from me. His eyes track the progress and then, when I start cleaning each and every finger, his gaze meets mine. The expression in his eyes breaks my heart.

"I love you too babe," I tell him, bringing his hand up to my mouth and placing a tender kiss to the tips of each finger.

After a quick glance out towards the nurse's station to be certain that they are all still preoccupied with their snacks I slide his hand up under the tank top and guide his big hands with their long fingers up over my breast. The feel of his cool skin against mine makes me draw in a ragged breath. His gaze flicks from where his hand is resting with his palm over my nipple up to meet my gaze. His expression is tender but a glimmer of frustration makes his eyes shiny.

"Yes you do, you do it for me, you always will Kevin," I whisper, leaning into his hand. I think I feel a twinge, the briefest of movements of one of his fingers, but then I've thought that before and gone running for the nearest doctor proclaiming a miracle only to be told that I've imagined it. So I don't move. I just close my eyes and just for a moment, imagine what it was like before the accident, before this big, strong man's body was turned into a living coffin.

They call it locked in syndrome which means he is aware and alert but can't move or communicate because he is completely paralyzed, except for his eyes. I can't imagine it, can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be locked in this once strong and active body that now lies motionless and dormant in this hospital bed with no hope of ever even sitting up or speaking again. I know how hard it's been for me to get used to.

I hear the pinging on the heart monitor start to speed up and smile. I open my eyes, ready to tell him to behave himself when I see that he isn't looking at me, but past me and I know that one of the nurses must be coming, or worse, an orderly. Rolling my eyes and sending Kev a look that says '_they're always getting in the way_', I slide his hand out from under my tank top and go back to running the wash cloth innocently over the back of his hand though we share a look that tells me that he still thinks it's funny when we get away with something like that.

* * *

><p>The doctor keeps making these little noises, little disapproving and disappointed noises, as he shines a light in my eyes and makes me follow his hand as it moves slowly from left to right. I'm doing my best not to blink, though the bright white light coming from that pen is making me want to both squeeze my eyes shut and throw up at the same time.<p>

"Pupils equal and reactive," he drones, turning the light on and off quickly, which does make me look away, suddenly dizzy. "But slow to react and, I'd say, definitely light sensitive."

"Tell me something I don't know, like how 'bout when can I play?" The doctor, some specialist they've brought over from the university gives me one of those 'just be patient' indulgent sort of smiles and goes back to making notes on his iPad before he takes a step back and indicates that I should jump down off of the examining table.

"Stand on one foot, hold the opposite hand straight out in front of you." My brain says this is easy and I even make a scornful face as I pull my one leg up behind me but as soon as I do that I start to teeter and lose my balance. Mumbling under my breath I fight to regain my balance but as soon as I try to put my hand out in front of me I start to fall. The doctor puts his iPad down on the examination table and catches me, holding me upright and smiling like he's done something clever. I want to punch him in the face. "You won't be playing any time soon," he tells me as he suggests I take a seat in a nearby chair as he goes back to making notes.

"Like not this week but…?" he shakes his head and then puts his iPad aside and crosses his arms in front of his chest.

"You've got a serious concussion. You shouldn't be doing anything strenuous for at least a month," he says in that voices that teachers use when they're trying to impress the importance of a rule to you, the '_I'm older and know better_' voice. I think about telling him that I was just fine with the activity I had last night but Scott, one of the Pens' trainers recognizes something in the expression on my face and gives a quick shake of his head so I don't.

"Guys play with concussions," I point out and Scott rolls his eyes like he knew I just couldn't help myself.

"Some guys, guys with names like Asham on their backs," a deep resonating voice says behind me. "But not guys with the number eighty-seven on their backs, is that understood?" I feel Mario's hand on my shoulder and turn to look up at him and even that movement makes my vision blur. "A month, right now, the guys can do without you. You play now, get banged around again, maybe you're out for the season, maybe more. Remember what happened with Savard last year. One, two playoff games…where is he now?" he asks me and I have to hang my head. We're all very aware of Savvy's injury; after all, one of our guys caused it.

"But I can practice, right?" I look hopefully in the direction of the doctor who gives an almost negligible shake of his head.

"No, no work outs and no just heading down to the gym. Rest, relaxation, sleep, quiet, that's the remedy here I'm afraid." I want to complain. No, I want to throw myself on the floor and kick up a good old fashioned tantrum but instead I bite my tongue and nod like I agree. Mario pats my back like I'm a good, obedient old dog and then musses my hair like a five year old tyke. I glare at Scott, because he's the only person in the room I can take my frustration out on and even he just smirks back at me, unfazed.

"Go home kiddo," Mario tells me. "We'll get you in the box next home game."

Yeah, like _that's_ going to make up for not playing.

"Great," I tell him and then get carefully and slowly to my feet, making sure that the room doesn't start spinning, before I head out into the hallway to find something or someone to punch.

* * *

><p>"Hey! Good timing. I was just pulling up outside when Godsy came out and saw me which is a good thing or I'd have been standing around outside and…." I don't get the chance to tell him that it's started raining and that I was going to get wait standing outside. My voice sort of disappears on me when he grabs me by my wrist and drags me into a nearby office, slams the door behind us and then slams me up against the back of the door. "Ummm a hello would have sufficed?" I manage before his mouth crashes down over mine, his lips forcibly moving over mine until I give in and open my mouth and his tongue sweeps boldly over mine.<p>

I moan as he presses his open palm over my mound and grabs my ass with the other. I don't protest as he unzips my shorts and shoves his hand inside. I gasp out loud as he shoves two fingers up inside of me and unabashedly hump his hand.

"Fuck you're wet. You want me," he growls hoarsely into my ear.

"God _damn_ Crosby you are one self centered asshole," I chuckle, reaching around to grab a handful of that formidable ass to press his growing erection against my thigh. "This isn't for you any more than those cinnamon buns were," I hiss as he strokes the pad of his thumb over my clit.

"Liar," he growls, his lips and tongue on my throat. "You can't wait to have my cock inside you and you know it." I shudder as the pad of his thumb circles my clit.

"Egotistical _and_ demented," I snigger and then gasp out loud as he rams a third digit up into my pussy. "I gather you've been cleared for contact," I pant as he finger bangs me and digs his teeth into my neck, sucking at pulse and sending another shiver straight down my spine, making my pussy constrict around his fingers.

"Not really," he admits, pulling back, grabbing my shorts and shoving them down over my hips. The minute they hit the floor and I step out of them he kicks them aside while he drags his own zipper down and pulls out his rock hard erection.

"Sidney…if you're not cleared for contact then don't you think…." I begin but before I can finish my thought, my suggestion that he should be taking it easy, being calm, he grabs my thighs, one in each hand, picks me up off of the floor and rams his cock home in what seems like one, fluid motion.

"Don't want to think," he snarls, his liquid chocolate and caramel gaze holding mine and daring me to contradict him. "What I want is to fuck you until you bleed," he adds in a low, throaty, menacing growl. My entire body becomes liquid fire in his hands and I can only nod and then tip my head back when he rolls his hips back and then stuffs himself, balls deep, inside of me.


	10. Chapter 10

_**thanks for helping with the writers block Shan, your vivid imagination helped me get this done**_**  
><strong>

**Chapter 10**

It seemed like he'd just gotten through with telling me and everyone else how he wasn't having headaches, but by the time I get him home he's dry heaving, the pain is so bad. He stumbles into the house like a drunk because he can't open his eyes and now I know why he wants to be here and not with someone closer to him; Sidney Crosby is crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees, not a sight for the uninitiated.

He doesn't even make an attempt to get out of his clothes, just crawls onto the bed that I didn't make this morning and pulls the sheet up over his head.

I stand at the foot of the bed, wondering what, if anything, I can do for him and then his hand appears out from under the sheet.

"Stay with me," he croaks, opening and closing his hand repeatedly like a child asking to be picked up. I look at his hand and at the lump he makes under the sheet and I can't help but feel sorry for him. Shucking my jacket, I sit on the edge of the bed and unlace my boots, kicking them off before I turn and slide under the blanket and fit my body against his, draping my arm over his waist.

I can feel how tense he's holding his entire body and I can only imagine what it feels like in his head right now but I also know that frustration is making him hold himself like this. I've never been accused of having a single ounce of maternal instinct, I've never even cooed at a baby in a pram, but I do my best now to make soothing noises and end up singing Frère Jacques to him, even though I'm not sure of all of the words and that seems to do the trick. I can feel him beginning to relax and then, as he rolls over, wraps his arms around me and lays his head on my chest, his breathing begins to slow.

I lie like that, cradling him like a child after a nightmare and wait until he is breathing deep and slowly and his body is heavy and slack and then I gently slip a pillow into my spot, slide off of the bed and slink out of the room.

I'm tip-toeing down the stairs when I hear voices. I pause half way down the stairs and wonder if I wake him up if Sid will be in any condition to defend my honor and then decide that, right at this moment, he'd probably be more of a hindrance than a help. I'm wondering where the nearest weapon might be when a face peers up at me, a face I know.

"Bon soir," he calls up to me. I hold my finger up to my lips and shake my head and then slowly make my way down to the bottom of the stairs, grab him by the lapels and lead him out to the kitchen where Max and Flower already have one of my containers of cookies open and Dupers is making coffee. "We wanted to see how he was doing," Kris tells me quietly, but his dark eyes are telling me that he's happy to see me too.

"Came right from the airport," Pascal says as he measures decaf coffee grinds into a filter, "we heard he was still here, with you," he adds in a way that says he's just a little bit surprised. He also gives me that fatherly sort of look that says he's not sure he really approves of that fact.

"Yeah, how's his noggin'?" Max asks, slapping Flower's hand away from a chocolate dipped Madeleine.

"Well…honestly, not good," I tell them all, opening a cupboard and pulling out several mugs, handing each one to Kris. He lines them up on the counter next to the coffee maker and then, when I hand him the fifth cup, he takes it from my hand and replaces it with his own hand. I stare at our joined hands and then up at him and feel these fluttery butterfly feelings in the pit of my stomach when he aims a sexy half smile at me. That never happens when Sid touches me but I store that nugget of information away in the back of my mind for later.

"So what did the doc say?" Max asks, giving our linked hands a skeptical look. I don't blame him but I can't make myself withdraw my hand from Kris's either.

"He won't play for a while." Max looks stricken. Marc-Andre looks sad. Pascal looks both disappointed and angry. Kris's reaction is harder to gauge when he lets his hair fall into his eyes but he's the one who breaks the silence and speaks first.

"He take it hard?" he asks with that soft lisp that weakens I'm sure every woman's knees not just mine.

"He did," I admit, a shudder running through me at the thought of just how he'd taken that out on me. "He's not doing so well," I add, with an upward glance, half of me hoping he's still asleep, while the other half is hoping that he'll come downstairs and he'll be buoyed by his friends.

"We should do something," Max says decisively, in that tone that has an '_all for one and one for all'_ feel to it. He looks around at the group with a '_who's with me'_ eager expression on his face.

"I'm not sure he's up to doing anything tonight," I admit, as it hits me that this is why he came to me, why he's hold up here in this house. It's not just the sex, at least not for him. It's that he doesn't want anyone to see him like this, anyone that matters that is. "Maybe tomorrow," I begin but the sound of footsteps down the hall make me pause and then he appears around the corner, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"No, I'm good," he lies. I can see just by the way his eyes aren't all the way open and the way he's holding his jaw that he must still be in excruciating pain. But he puts on a smile for his friends and all of them play along, like it's not fucking obvious that he should be anywhere but lying down in a dark room. I glare at Pascal, silently pleading with the father in the group to use some fucking common sense but he just gives me the slightest of nods. He knows, but if their captain wants to play it like this, so will they.

"Whatever. You guys play nice. I have to go to work," I mutter and turn to leave, which is when I remember that I'm still attached to Kris. I stare down at where his hand is still holding mine captive and he stares down at it too and then drops my hand but not before tipping his head towards the hallway. "Don't keep him up long," I hiss at Dupers as I stride by him, "and please don't eat all the Nanaimo bars," I call over my shoulder. I hear the scraping of chairs and shake my head as I hear Max gasp something like '_there's Nanaimo bars?'_ and then the opening and closing of the fridge door. Somebody's gonna have to hit the gym in the morning.

"So when can I see you?" Kris asks quietly as I grab my jacket off of the back of the chair where I'd left it when we'd gotten home. I keep my back to him as I slide my jacket on, trying to decide what my answer to that should be.

"I don't know," I reply quietly, palming my keys from the dish by the door. "Right now it's…," what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, "complicated." I turn to face him and he's wearing a quizzical expression as his fathomlessly dark eyes search my face.

"You…and…him?" I'm glad he doesn't come out and ask it, put it in real words because it makes it easier for me to lie.

"Sid?" I glance towards the kitchen where I can hear Max and Dupers fighting over the bars. "No," I make a face and shake my head. "But…you know, he's here and…I feel like I should be here for him, you know?"Kris glances back towards the kitchen with a thoughtful look on his face and then takes a step towards me. Part of me wants to back up; more of me doesn't. When he reaches out and brushes my cheek with the back of my hand I want to purr and those butterflies come back, making my knees a little weak as I look up into his handsome features, feeling like I'm being bathed in some kind of angelic spotlight.

"You and I," he says quietly, leaning in towards me so that just the ends of his silky brown bangs brush my forehead, "could be fun, non?" How I don't hang my tongue out and pant like a bitch in heat, I don't know. Somehow though, I manage, just, to smile and shrug.

"I don't know, maybe, but not now, okay?" He looks disappointed again, but not in that '_oh well you're loss_' sort of way but more in the '_I can't believe you just kicked me_' sort of way. Yeah, well, me neither. "Gotta go. If I'm late Chef likes to throw knives," I explain and sort of duck out from under his arm and sidle towards the door. Just as I put my hand on the doorknob, wondering why I didn't lock it before, I catch sight of Sid, just out of the corner of my eye. I wonder how long he's been standing there. "Don't do too much," I call out to him and he nods, just once and then I head out the door.

* * *

><p>"What are you doing here?" The last thing I'm expecting when I step out into the alley at one in the morning is Sidney Crosby to be waiting in the shadows. "And more importantly, how did you get here?" The last time I'd seen him, or when I'd left to go to work, he'd been curled into a ball in the middle of the bed fast asleep.<p>

"Max dropped me off," he explains, pushing away from the wall he's leaning on. It occurs to me to tell him that it's not the cleanest spot to lean against, but as soon as I open my mouth to do so it reminds me that we had sex there and I quickly shut my mouth. "We went for dinner. They were going to a club, so I thought maybe you wouldn't mind some company." he continues moving around behind me to help me slip my arm into my jacket. It's a chivalrous thing to do but then that doesn't surprise me. For the most part you can't fault Sidney's manners and conduct. Most of the time he really is that good Canadian kid from a small town; just maybe not in the sack, not that I'm complaining.

"Have you been waiting long? You should have come in, I could have fed you," I tell him, giving his solid, flat stomach a poke. He grimaces, but grabs my hand before I can pull it back. I half expect him to do something boyish and playful, like give me an arm burn on or something but he just slides his hand down my wrist and laces his fingers with mine. I stare down at our intertwined fingers, noting the thickness of his fingers and how my hand almost entirely disappears into his, and then I shake my hand loose. He doesn't protest, which is good but he doesn't move away from me either.

"I don't know how you do this all the time," he says, as I bend to unbuckle the saddle bags and retrieve the skull cap for him. _My_ helmet I keep inside the restaurant. "It's dangerous this time of night for you to be on your own." I'm glad that my back is to him because I'm sure that the look on my face is far from tolerant.

"I've been doing this on my own for a while, and besides, if I screamed loud enough right now, I'm pretty sure the dish pigs would come to the rescue," I insist as I straighten up and hand him the helmet. He takes it, his fingertips brushing mine. I'm sure that it's on purpose but I ignore it, or try to. It's hard to tell my body that it shouldn't want the comfort of a man's touch, especially when my body knows what a good job this man does of scratching the itch, but it really is only my body that reacts to his and not in the same way that it does to his teammate. It's a discrepancy that I've been thinking about all night as I spooned out rice pudding with raspberry coulis and turned crème caramels out of their ramekins.

As he settles on the seat behind me and slips his arms around my waist I'm well aware of how many women in this city, and yes maybe the world, would gladly trade places with me. But as I feel the solid wall of his chest press against my back, as hard as I search myself I don't feel more than the faintest flutter in the pit of my stomach.

I've decided it's because I can have him, _have_ had him, and because despite everything, I still see him as that self centered, entitled young man. Or maybe it's because I pity him.

Or maybe I'm just protecting myself from falling for him like I did for Kevin and then losing him too because the next time he takes a hit maybe they'll be in beds next to each other.

* * *

><p>I sit on the edge of the single bed in the guest bedroom listening to the sound of the shower running and tell myself that I should stay where I am, that she's made it pretty clear that whatever is going on here isn't something she wants to take any further. Between whispering with Kris in the hall and the way she dropped my hand like it had burned her my ego is bruised enough that I'm not sure I can take much more, and yet I can't make myself lie down.<p>

Every time I think about climbing under the sheets the thought of sleeping alone stops me. It feels like I've developed a fear of the dark. I feel like an idiot but I find myself standing in the bathroom with a towel in my hands waiting for her to step out of the shower.

She does give me that look when she pushes the shower curtain aside, like I'm some kind of creep and I try not to stare and make it worse as she steps out of the tub and I wrap her up in the towel.

"You should be sleeping," she tells me, taking the towel from me and unselfconsciously standing there in front of my eyes, drying her hair. My gaze naturally falls to the tattoos that cover her one arm and I realize that I'm no longer appalled and now I'm actually picking out the patterns; the dragon with it's red eyes that wraps around a three-masted schooner on her bicep, its tail reaching all the way down to wrap around the raven on the inside of her forearm. I've never noticed the mermaid in its jaws before or the intertwined initials on the inside of her wrist. When I reach out to trace them with my fingers she pulls her arm back and holds it against her chest, like she doesn't want me looking that closely at it.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" I ask, considering she's brought up sleeping, as she slides a t-shirt over her head and then wraps the towel around her wet hair. She glances at me in the mirror and then reaches for my razor and hands it to me over her shoulder.

"If you shave. The stubble burns," she says simply and then reaches for her toothbrush. I stand there, my razor in my hand, watching her brush her teeth.

"I didn't mean…necessarily…." I stumble over my words. It's one thing to take her, press her against the wall and do things to her I didn't know I could do. It's something else entirely to talk about it. She just looks back at me in the mirror and raises a single eyebrow as she brushes her teeth. Without missing a beat she reaches into the cupboard below the sink and pulls out a can of shaving lotion and hands it to me, and then spits into the sink and then rinses out both her toothbrush and the sink before hopping up onto the counter, crossing her ankles and looking at me expectantly.

I unbutton a few buttons and then tug my shirt over my head and pass it to her, not wanting to accidentally drip onto it, and then wet down my face. She watches, as she carefully but without looking down, folds my shirt and sets it beside herself on the counter.

I feel strangely self conscious as I take the first swipe of the razor through the foam. It feels intimate, having her watch me do this and I don't know why. When I glance over at her as I take the next stroke she's looking critically at me, like I'm doing it wrong.

"What?" I ask, rinsing the razor under the running water.

"You're supposed to shave downward," she says, her fingers twitching on her thighs like she wants to do it for me so I hand her the razor. She looks down at it in her hand and then up at me.

"You sure you trust your pretty face with me?" she asks. I wrinkle my nose at my own reflection. I know I'm better looking than Ovechkin but I know I'm not 'pretty' either; not like Tanger. I nod and she scoots over closer to the sink. I stand as still as I can with my hands on the smooth skin just above her knees, watching as her tongue sticks out as she concentrates.

I feel the razor sliding along my skin, but barely, and I don't feel the headache that's been making my head throb like a bass drum all afternoon at all. Just like every other time her touch is better than any pain reliever I've ever tried.

"Your eyes are so…odd," I find myself telling her. She makes a little noise, kind of like a snort, but doesn't stop what she's doing. I know I shouldn't be talking, shouldn't be moving but it's like I can't help it when I'm around her. My fingers slide up her thighs and she pauses, mid stroke, and gives me one of those '_behave yourself'_ looks that I thought only my mother had perfected.

I hold still long enough for her to shave my upper lip, but when she runs the pad of her thumb along my lip to sweep away any remaining foam, I can't help but press my lips to it and then, when she says and does nothing to stop me, I slip my lips over her thumb and pull it into my mouth, wrapping my tongue around it.

I can see her trying not to look at me as she rinses the razor but when I move on to her index finger, those grey eyes of hers slide up to meet my gaze and I know that I'm not hiding a damn thing from her and I know I should be afraid but I'm not.

"Sidney I…," she begins but I shake my head. I know she's going to say that she doesn't feel what I'm feeling right now but it doesn't matter and I don't want to hear it so I press my lips to the palm of her hand and then unwind the towel from her hair and use it to wipe my face and then I toss it aside as I reach for her, as I cradle her face in my hands and ignore the plea not to do this that's in her eyes and I kiss her.

I kiss her like I've never kissed anyone else. I kiss her softly even though I want to kiss her hard. I kiss her like she's made of glass. I kiss her slowly, like I want this kiss to last all night.

Violet isn't so patient. At first she tries to pull back but when I won't let her, or at least won't let go of her, she digs her fingers into the back of my head and sweeps her tongue over my bottom lip. She tastes like mint toothpaste, cool and fresh.

I pick her up from the counter, settle her in my hands as she locks her ankles behind me and then I carry her into the master bedroom and lay her down on the bed. The plain gray t-shirt she's wearing rides up over her hips and as I unzip my jeans, she pulls it off the rest of the way, tossing it aside so that when I step out of my jean she's lying there, warm, clean and inviting.

I want to be inside of her. I want her to make those noises that I like. but there's something that I've been wanting to do and I decide I'm going to do that tonight. I hear her object, and ignore it, as I kneel beside the bed and pull her towards me, bringing her to my lips. I press her thighs wide and bury my face in her.

Her objections turn into moans as I taste her, as I run my tongue from her entrance all the way up to her clit. She tastes like salty honey as I dig my tongue into her entrance and feel her dig her fingers into my hair. I've been keeping it short so that it stays out of my eyes when I sweat but this is a reason to grow it out. There's not much for her to grab onto and she ends up having to dig her nails into my scalp but even that little pain doesn't deter me as run the tip of my tongue around her clit and am rewarded with high pitched whimpers.

She creams for me, her juices flowing clear and thick as I slide two fingers up inside of her, searching for that spot that will bring her, that I hope will make her call my name. I know when I find it at last, when her hips rise off of the bed and she lets out a cry that I recognize, a sound that to me is as good as a cookie is to a dog. It's good boy and great job and kind of like scoring a goal right before the end of a period sending you into the dressing room on a high, or, in this case, making slipping my dick into her warm, wet entrance easy, slippery work.

"You feel so hot," I tell her as I hold myself half way in, her muscles grasping at me, trying to pull me all the way in but I just hold as still as I can before pulling almost all of the way out just to see her juices gleaming on my rod. I watch it disappear inside of her again and then I look up into those kitten gray eyes of hers and am given my next reward.

She's fighting not to enjoy this too much, not to feel too much, but when I let her see how good she's making me feel and just how beautiful I think the view is I see her start to lose that fight and when I pour myself over her like hot fudge sauce, as I kiss my way up her body until my mouth is hovering over hers I tell her the words I know she doesn't want me to say.

"I'm falling in love with you Violet."


	11. Chapter 11

_I'm going away for a couple days so I thought I would post this to tide you over. Have a good weekend._

**Chapter 11**

She lies on her side, her back to me, and flinches when I touch her. I know I should be counting my blessings that she didn't just immediately run and lock herself in another room, or worse, leave altogether, but her shutting me out like this isn't what I want either.

"We should talk about this," I whisper, reaching for her again but the minute my fingertips even brush the smooth skin of her hip she goes very still in a way that makes it clear that she doesn't want me touching her right now.

"I don't want to talk about…anything, not with you," she snarls, sliding off the edge of the bed and pulling the sheet with her.

"But with Kris," I begin, seeing in my head, again, the way the he looked at her. As if she was a mountain to be conquered or a giant bowl of spaghetti to be devoured.

"No! Not with you, not with Kris, not with anyone. I don't want…_that_," she replies adamantly, pulling the sheet off of the bed and wrapping herself in it like a kimono. I watch the lavender fabric wind around her and all I want to do is unwind her like a top and pull her back onto the bed, back into my arms. Even seeing the stern set of her jaw, the angry flash in her eyes doesn't scare me off. "Seriously, Sid, stop looking at me like that!" I don't have to ask like what. I know that I'm looking at her like she's a hot fudge sundae with whip cream and a cherry on top that's just for me.

"What did you think was going to happen? We're having sex all over the place," I explain, trying to be reasonable and trying not to sound like the guy with the swollen ego that can't believe that there is actually a girl in this city who doesn't want to me to put a ring on it.

"Yeah, it's just _sex_. I like sex. You're a man, you're supposed to be happy that's all am I asking for, so why are you trying to complicate everything?" she asks, holding the sheet up to her chin like I haven't already tasted every centimeter of her fragrant skin, as if I can't, just by closing my eyes, imagine every solitary curve and every freckle on her entire body. With a frustrated growl she rolls her eyes at me and then turns and heads for the en-suite, slamming the door behind her.

Part of me feels like I should apologize. Like I should do anything to make her come back to this bed and listen to all of the plans that I've formed in my head for us. The other part of me knows that the ferocious woman in that room is like a tiger in a cage, and that poking the tiger is probably suicidal. Like a stray dog I know that the only way to contend with her is to be patient, give her room and wait for her to come back to me.

I don't know how much time passes but when the door eventually opens it's clear that she's calmed down but I keep my mouth shut as she takes the few steps required to cross the room to the bed and I ignore how much my hands itch to touch her as she sits down beside me.

"Whatever you _think_ you feel…," she begins but I won't let her finish.

"I _know_ what I feel. I haven't felt it for a while but I do know what I'm feeling," I tell her but when I reach for her one of her hands she hides them in the folds of the sheet she's holding around her.

"You can't," she insists quietly but firmly, her gaze fixed somewhere on the floor at our feet.

"Why not?" I ask, sincerely puzzled. "I know you're not secretly a guy or anything like that," I add, trying to alleviate the tension but she only shoots me a dirty look and sighs.

"Because of this," she snaps, holding her arm out, the one with the full sleeve, "and because of this," she adds, sticking her tongue out, flashing the stud that makes my dick stir to life. If I'd only known how that felt before I'd met her I would never have turned down a girl with one. I know how I felt when I'd first seen the tattoos and the piercings but I feel differently about them now so when I look at them, as I reach out and take her arm in my hands, I only see parts of the woman that I love.

"So?" I lift her arm and kiss the inside of her wrist where the raven is captured in the dragon's tail.

"Oh for crying out fucking loud Crosby," she snarls, pulling her hand free, struggling to get to her feet and then dropping the sheet so she's standing, nude, in front of me. "Look at me and not just at my jugs. Do you really, honestly, think that this is what they want you to be with? Purple hair, tats, burn scars…?" she stares at me like she expects me to suddenly have some kind of revelation, come to my senses and run screaming from the room when the truth is all I can see is her milky white skin and her heavy breasts with their rose bud nipples and the landing strip of dark curls on her mound. All I see is Violet and her grey blue purple eyes and her full lips.

"But I love you," I tell her and feel my heart swell when I do. I feel happy when I say it even though she rolls her eyes, lets out a howl of frustration and shakes her head at me like I'm saying it just to be contradictory and by consequence, annoying. That's something Max would do but not me.

"You've had one too many bumps to the head," she grumbles and reaches for the sheet, pulling it up around her so that she's wrapped like a present. A present I want to unravel, unwrap and play with immediately. "Crosby…you can't love me, okay?"

"But I do," I reply honestly, and even though I try not to, I can't help but smile when I say it, which I know isn't helping. She makes this sound, in the back of her throat and stares at me like she's willing me to take it back, which I won't, and then she purses her lips and narrows her eyes.

"Well I can't love you," she says, like that settles everything.

"Why not? Why am I so fucking horrible that you can't love me? I mean, maybe I'm not as handsome as Kris or as attentive as Flower but…," she looks pained and uses the one hand that isn't holding the sheet closed to pinch the bridge of her nose as she squeezes her eyes shut.

"Okay…fuck…fine. Put some clothes on. I think there's something you should see."

* * *

><p>Call it classic conditioning or Pavlovian reinforcement but it only took two shakes of the container of cookies and all of the nurses heads appeared from wherever they were working and then it was like vultures on carrion and just as always, despite the hour, no one of the well trained dogs made a move to stop us from walking through the intensive care ward. But just like a kennel full of dogs, they sensed the bitch in heat in the room and one by one they turned to watch us, no him, walk by. They all looked, paced the cage a little, maybe scented the air, but not one of the said a word as I lead Sid to the dim room at the back corner of the ward.<p>

One beeping monitor said his heart was beating and the whoosh and sigh of the apparatus that breathed for him told me he was alive, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. With his eyes closed Kevin didn't look like he was sleeping, he looked like he was dead.

I don't know how he sleeps with all that beeping and the natter of the starlings out by the nurse's station, actually I wasn't sure if he did sleep or just closed his eyes to rest them. But just as he always did when I walked in the room, whether he sensed it, knew by the sound of my walk or by the scent of yeast and icing sugar but I hadn't even reached the bed when his eyes opened and he looked right at me.

I sit on the edge of the bed and lean across his body to press my lips over his. They don't move and the kiss isn't the toe curling blood boiling thing that I can get from Sid but his lips are pliable and warm and it's his kiss. It's what I have and it makes me smile.

There's a greeting in his eyes and maybe an 'I'm surprised to see you now' expression but that doesn't stay there long. It only takes a minute for his gaze to travel past me, over my shoulder where it stays for a long, considering moment before it slowly slides back to meet mine. The look in his eyes clearly says 'what's with the guy?' and then his gaze swerves back, suddenly, and then his eyes get wide. This time when his gaze meets mine the message is that he's clearly impressed. I roll my eyes at him but can't help but smile.

"Yep, it's Sidney Crosby," I confirm, moving so that I can look over at where Sid is standing in the corner, clearly uncomfortable, visibly shaken. "Crosby, this is Kevin, my fiancé." This time it's Sid's gaze that swivels suddenly to my hand where it's splayed on Kev's chest, to the bare finger. I don't wear it because I bake and dough gets caught in it. I also don't wear because then people ask and what do you say when your fiancé is in a hospital bed and can't even say your name out loud?

I never really wondered, until right now, if Kev ever noticed that I stopped wearing it. Self consciously I let my hand slide down out of sight but that's not where he looks. He looks at the board in the corner and my gaze follows his.

"Oh yeah, you wanna talk to him huh?" I get up off of the bed and move over to where the alphabet and picture chart sits. We don't really use it. Maybe neither of us thinks we need it but when there's a stranger in the room, I know it's like proving that he really is in there.

I roll the chart over beside the bed and swing the arm it's on until it's right in front of him. Kev's eyes move slowly along the chart. He blinks when he picks out a letter. It's kind of like texting; sometimes he'll spell a whole word but more often than not he abbreviates them or picks out a picture like in Pictionary and then I have to guess.

I don't have to guess what he asks, it's pretty clear.

"Oh so it's like that is it?" I shake my head at him but he blinks hard, once, and then looks right at Sid. "He wants to know if you're fucking his girl." I'm pretty sure I can hear Sid swallow from where I am and when I glance over at him his eyes are wide and he's looking at me like I've dragged him into some kind of trap. "Well, go on," I suggest with a wry smile. "Tell the man what he wants to know."

For me this isn't the first time. The first time, with one of our friends, Adam, now _that_ was awkward. We thought we were hiding it, or I guess I did and Adam just figured Kev would never know. I mean, after all, most guys are pretty slow on the uptake about feelings and nuances and body language but I guess when you lie in a hospital bed all day and just watch people, you get damned good at picking up on the little things.

"Do you want me…am I supposed to say yes?" Sid hisses at me.

"He can hear you, he's not deaf," I explain, I think a little needlessly. When I look back at Kev, his eyes begin to sweep over the letter again and I follow. When he's finished I tip my head to the side and slowly shake my head. "Seriously?" He blinks again, once and then looks right at Sid. "I am not gonna say that," I tell him and then he blinks again, once, and then just stares at me as if to say '_I'm waiting'_. "He wants to know if it's good, if I'm good," I add and then stick my tongue out at him.

This time Crosby makes an uncomfortable noise in his throat and turns and heads out of the room. I can hear him leave. I even hear the chatter at the nurse's station go silent as he walks by. I wait until I hear the chatter start up again, in fact increase in volume, before I give Kev a little swat on the shoulder.

"That wasn't nice," I chastise him and he just stares at me like he's proud of himself and then his gaze begins to travel over the board again. I mouth the letters as he picks them, putting together the words as they come to me and then I deliberately look away. "That's not fair," I sigh and then force myself to look back at me. He blinks twice, 'no' and then just stares at me. "Yeah, I know, you don't get to fuck me so you should be allowed to ask how it is, I get that but…maybe when I'm not in the room." His eyes go back to the board and I follow and this time I'm the one being chastised. "No, he didn't know, you're right. I was being a bitch, but then, you know that about me." We look at one another and this time we don't need the board for me to know that he agrees and not just for Sidney's sake. "I'm sorry," I sigh and he blinks once, yes, because he accepts my apology and then his eyes go back to the board.

H…E…L…I…K…E…S…U

"Yeah, he's kind of soft in the head like that," I reply softly. He blinks twice, no. "Of course you don't agree but then you think Mario was better than Gretzky and I have to differ with you there," I begin teasing him but his gaze flies back to the board.

D…O…U…L…I…K…E…H…I…M

"No," I shake my head emphatically. "No, you know me. I don't like any of them. He's just a decent lay. I love you." He blinks, once and then his gaze softens but I get the distinct impression that he doesn't believe me.

* * *

><p>I was pacing by her bike when she came through the automatic front doors of the hospital. She didn't look at me, just went for her helmet that was hanging from the handlebars. I stood there, waiting for I don't even know what, but as she lifted her leg over and sat down on the bike I couldn't make myself just get on the behind her.<p>

"Drunk driver," she said, as if she could sense that I was about to ask her what had happened, "tried to pass him on the shoulder in the dark, clipped him, sent him skidding under the wheels of a truck." I winced visions of the accident scene where Tanger's friend Luc was killed flashing through my mind.

"How…how long has he been like that?" My head has started to hurt but I can't feel sorry for myself, not after seeing that.

"A few months," she replies quietly, her helmet still on her lap. She's fiddling with the chin strap and I wonder how she can get on the bike. I'm wondering if I'm going to. The whole sense of rebellion and freedom is totally gone now.

"And how long can he…will he stay like that?" I ask, unable to imagine myself like that.

"They don't know but not long. He'll get some kind of infection or pneumonia and…, " Her reply this time is even quieter and she falls silent before she can say the words and I feel even more like I've infringed on a private moment but then I remind myself that she brought me into this, not that I had any idea what to say to her now. What can you say? "So that's why," she began, only turning enough so that I could see the devastation seeing him caused in her. "Don't ask me anymore. As long as… well, there's just no room, okay?"

I nod, because there's nothing else can I do, besides to put the helmet on and get behind her on the bike. She slides her helmet on and revs the engine on the bike and as I slide my arms around her waist I know that I understand why she won't let herself feel anything for me but if she thought that seeing him, seeing her with him, would make me feel less, she's sadly mistaken.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"How are you sleeping?"

How do I answer that question? _Not a lot because I'm having sex with this incredible woman and then laying awake half the night wondering how to get through the wall she's built around her heart_. It's just a wild guess but I'm thinking that isn't the right answer to give as the specialist shines that pen light in my eyes and I do my best not to throw up. When I lose the battle and blink he makes that clicking sound with his tongue and picks up his clipboard and then looks up expectantly.

"Okay I guess," I shrug as I lie. I know I'm supposed to be giving this guy all the information he asks for so he can figure out if I'm improving or not but I just can't see discussing my sex life, especially when I'm not sure what's actually going on.

"And the headaches?" he asks and considering that's why I'm here, I decide I'd better not lie about that.

"Woke up with a pretty bad one," I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. I don't tell him that I was relegated to the purgatory of the guest room and that the bed was lumpy or that I'd lain awake half the night thinking about Violet's boyfriend and wondering how he could live like that or if he even wanted to. "If I played…like if I played right now and I got hurt again, took another shot to the head…could I go into a coma or something?" The doctor stops and levels his gaze at me over the tops of his glasses.

"That is possible," he replies, his gaze holding mine in that '_this__is__important__'_ sort of way. "Or you could have a seizure or a hemorrhage that could do irreparable harm to your brain." I nod, because it's what I've been told before but now it's actually sinking in.

"Has that ever happened?" I ask, wondering if I could wake up like that.

"Ever? It's certainly possible, yes," the doctor answers thoughtfully. "That's why it's imperative that you let yourself heal Mr. Crosby. The brain is a highly sensitive and mysterious organ but it's also resilient. The brain has a great capacity to heal itself, given time."

"So what you're saying is I have to be patient," I mutter, heaving myself off of the examination table and onto my feet.

"That _is_ the best medicine I'm afraid," he replies giving me that patient indulgent sort of smile, as if I'm some kind of impatient two year old, which is sort of how I feel right now, knowing the other guys are hitting the ice for practice and I can't join them.

"Why don't you head home?" My jacket in my hand I look up to see Mario leaning in the doorway.

"Where else can I go?" I mutter, keeping my voice low. My head was hurting before but now it's starting to throb.

"I mean _home_, to your mom, home cooking, _away_ from the rink," he suggests but like it's not a suggestion, more like it's an order.

"Jeeeezus, why don't you just send me to Wilkes?" I grumble, which makes Mario laugh. Putting me in a baby Pens uniform is something he threatens me with when he thinks I need an attitude adjustment but we both know he'll never go through with it.

"It's probably just adding to your stress to be here and not be able to play," he suggests and I know that he's right. I hate not being able to have any effect on the game, it's a pretty discouraging. "Just for a few days," he adds with a tip of his head, "then come back and we'll reevaluate things." It's almost like he's promising that all it will take is a few of my mom's peanut butter cookies and I'll be all better.

"Yeah, maybe," I shrug, tugging on my jacket. Maybe if Violet will come, I think to myself as I head down the hallway, feeling Mario's eyes on me the entire way.

* * *

><p>"Are you kidding?" I don't even look up from the dough I'm punching down. The idea is so ridiculous I'm not even sure why I'm answering.<p>

"It would be just for a few days," he argues and I roll my eyes and turn my back to him, reaching for the bowl to put the dough back in to let it rest and rise a second time.

"In case you hadn't noticed I have work," I point out, taking the other bowl across to the island and taking out the ball of warm dough, unwrapping it and putting it on the floured board.

"Quit the restaurant. You don't like it there anyway," is his quick reply and when I look up he's already anticipating what I'm going to say. "I'll pay you whatever they're paying you."

"So you think that's how it works? And you really think that after a week or two that I'd still have my job, there, or any other restaurant in the city?" I snort as I sprinkle flour over the dough and begin to roll it out.

"I don't get it though," he interjects. "You're always cooking, baking stuff that has nothing to do with the restaurant," he says, grabbing one of the muffins I'd baked this morning while he was out.

"Yeah, well, the time to experiment with a recipe is not an hour before dinner service," I point out, reaching for a baking pan.

"You don't serve _these_ at the restaurant," he points out, brandishing the muffin in my face like a piece of key evidence at a murder trial. I look at the blueberry muffin in his hand and shrug.

"You know what I make those for," I reply quietly and go back to forming round pillows of dough and putting them in the baking pan.

"And what about those?" he asks, poking his finger at the buns I'm making. "The restaurant serves bread sticks _not__ buns_."

"Fuck! Okay, I like to fucking bake, what has that got to fucking do with the price of fucking tea in China?" I snarl, slapping his hand away, grabbing the baking pan and turning to put it in the oven.

"Wouldn't you be happier with a bakery? Somewhere you could cook all of this stuff?" he asks, his tone softer now, nearer. I don't turn. My hands are both gripping the handle of the oven as I wish him away. I can't think about this kind of stuff right now and his insistence is like water torture.

"Yeah well, starting a new business is risky and besides I can barely afford my bike let alone an industrial oven, mixer…."

"I'll pay for it, whatever you need." I'd known he was going to say it before the words came out of his mouth. It's exactly what Sidney Crosby, nice guy and all around superhero would do and I know that he would never ask one red cent in return. That doesn't stop me from seeing the giant catch, the sticky web around the big fat wonderful offer.

"I can't be your girlfriend." I don't have to look to know that his sudden silence is like watching a soufflé deflate, sticking a pin in a balloon and leaving a cake out in the rain. I also know, given a moment, he'll rally and when I look over at him, he's rearranging his features to look like what I said didn't bother him.

"We can work out some kind of business thing…arrangement, whatever," he offers, like that will make it all okay. Like I won't notice he's trying to bribe me.

"You know I don't have time for that anyway," I grumble, wiping my flour coated hands on my jeans, "I have _other_ responsibilities," I remind him tersely, grabbing the egg timer and twisting the dial harder than is strictly necessary. "Speaking of which," I add, shoving the timer into his hand, "when this goes off, take those out."

"A few days away might be good for you," he says, giving me the puppy dog eyes as I turn to walk out of the kitchen.

"Yeah a lot can happen in a few days and I'm not leaving him for that long," I call over my shoulder but I don't wait for a reply as I run up the stairs to get changed.

* * *

><p>I should leave it alone. I know it's a bitch move to try and force her to do what I want when she's made it pretty crystal clear that I don't fit into her plans and she has no interest in fitting into mine but I'm not made up of the stuff that takes no for an answer so I charge up the stairs after her and when she tries to slam the bedroom door behind her I nearly take the damn thing off of its hinges and end up embedding the handle into the wall. She stares at it and then at me and rolls her lilac eyes at me.<p>

"Smooth move ex-lax," she huffs and then turns away from me again, dragging the soft gray t-shirt that's covered in flour and blueberry stains over her head and tossing it onto the floor. "Now I'll have to get that fixed before I leave on the weekend so make sure you leave me some money before you go." Until that moment I'd forgotten that this wasn't her place, her room, our bed and a flutter of panic makes my throat tight.

"Where will you be?" I cough, imagining myself at the front door of this house looking at a stranger's face and trying to explain why I'm standing on their doorstep.

"Look, I think maybe it's better if you don't know. We should probably just draw a line in the sand here anyway," she says as she wiggles her jeans down over her hips and then steps out of them. What she says between the lines is that she thinks I'm getting too attached which, while true, is for me to worry about, not her.

"So as soon as I leave you can make a move on Kris?" It sounds even harsher when I say it out loud than it had in my head but she doesn't so much as flinch when she turns, tilts her head to the side and smiles at me.

"If I do, it's not business of yours," she replies crisply, every inch the tough girl with her hands on her hips but it's hard for me to stop staring at in her matching black bra and panties and not think about how soft her skin is, even where it's covered in tattoos. "Stop it." I look up into her serious gaze and she rolls her eyes. She doesn't even have to say it for me to know that she doesn't appreciate my undressing her in my mind. Knowing it doesn't stop me from doing it, or from taking the two strides required to cover the distance between where I'm standing and where I can take her face and cradle it in my hands while I kiss her.

I ignore her trying to push me away or maybe I just hold onto her harder, knowing or maybe just hoping that she'll give in and eventually she does. Her hands curl into my shirt and she pulls me back and we both fall on the bed. The headache I've been suffering with all day is gone, replaced by a painful ache in my balls as she reaches between us and slides the palm of her hand over the front of my jeans.

"Don't fuck him," I beg her, using my teeth to emphasize my point, digging them into her neck, making her whimper.

"Has he got a big cock? You've seen it right? Is it bigger than a baby's arm?" she hisses back at me, her hand cupping my now rock hard erection. With a growl I shove my hand down the front of her panties and slide my fingers into her warm folds, searching for that spot that will make her stop talking, even though I'm the one that brought it up but even when I find it, even when I press my fingers down on it and she drags a sharp breath in between her teeth the challenge doesn't leave her eyes. "That's it, isn't it? He's going to ruin me for every other….ah…ah!" Her head tips back and her eyes close when I rub her clit vigorously, like I'm an eraser and she' s a mark I can't get out.

"He'll fall in love with you too," I warn her as I watch her hands reach out to grab a hold of the sheet, digging her fingers into and twisting the fabric around her hands. "He'll bring flowers and I bet he'll even watch you sleep. Hell, he'll probably read you poetry," I add, watching her lick her full lips. She's getting close.

"As long as he reads it in French," she sighs, still defiant even as she raises her hips off of the bed and digs her heels into the mattress.

"Est que ce que vous voulez?" I ask, whispering in her ear. "Voulez-vous que je vous dis que je t'aime en français?"

"Nooo," she whimpers, rolling her face away from mine, exposing the long, pale line of her throat to me. I bite down over her pulse and slide my other hand up to cup her breast, feeling her nipple through the lace, pressing against my palm.

"Que vous-voulez me supplie en français?" I ask, biting down on her earlobe as she squirms against my hand, rubbing me as much as I'm rubbing her. "Dis moi que tu es sentes quelque chose pour moi," I whisper, sliding my hand beneath the lace of her bra and rolling her nipple between my fingers.

"I can't," she moans, her entire body tightening, her back arching. She's so close now, I can feel the heat coming off of her, watch the rush of blood beneath her skin.

"You _can_," I insist, pulling away from her all at once, except to drag her panties down and away, tossing them on the floor with the rest of her clothes.

"No!" she snarls, going up on her elbows to look down the line of her body at me as I undo my belt and shove my jeans down.

"Yes," I snap back, and then, before the idea even has a chance to fully form in my mind, I'm dragging the leather belt out of the loops. She watches me with wide eyes and then tries to crab leg back across the bed, her head shaking back and forth. I grab one of her slim ankles and drag her back to the edge of the bed, even while she brings most of the sheets with her, and then I turn her over so that the pale curve of her ass is sticking up as I push her head down and hold her there.

"You wouldn't," she moans, her voice muffled by the sheets, but I can hear the desire in it. I run one hand down over the pale moon of one cheek and then dip it into her entrance. My fingers come out gleaming with her juices.

"You deserve it," I tell her, doing it again but this time I slide my fingers up through her swollen folds until I find that button and give it a swipe that makes her jump. "You want it," I tell her, or am I telling myself before I bring the belt up and down across her ass. It makes a good sound, a loud crack, as it meets her pale skin. The stroke isn't hard but her entire body jumps. Her pussy lips quiver. Oh yeah, she wants it. "You like it," I realize, bringing the belt up and down again, harder this time, a stroke that leaves a light red mark across her ass.

"Yessss," she moans out loud, her knees slide apart, baring her innermost centre to my greedy eyes. I bring the belt down again, sliding it across her ass so that her pussy lips taste leather. She gasps. It's a high, satisfying sound.

I've never done this before but my cock is rock hard and balls are aching as I bring the belt up and down once more, harder this time, hard enough that her entire body lurches forward and her head snaps up when the leather meets her skin. An angry red welt comes up behind the stroke and I run the palm of my hand over it, over the curve of her ass, feeling the warmth left behind.

"Again?" I ask, dipping my fingers into her pussy, slowly working them in and out, feeling her muscles clench around them.

"Yesss, pleeeeeasssse," she moans and I bring the belt up and down one more time, leaving another red mark beside the last one. She cries out and her mouth stays open in a silent howl after the sound has stopped coming out. That's when I stick my cock into her, slam it deep into her pussy and feel it clench around me, dragging me deep into her.

"So tight, god," I moan as I drop the belt and replace it with my hand, bringing it up and down on her cheek, feeling her body jump beneath my hand, watching her ass jiggle, watching a red welt in the shape of my hand come up before I do it again.

* * *

><p>"I didn't know you had it in you, Crosby," I gasp as we both lie, chests heaving and sweat glimmering on our skin, side by side on the bed. The tips of his ears burn crimson and he turns his face away. "Aww," I purr, crawling closer to him, sliding my hand over the small of his back and laying my cheek on his shoulder blade, "I won't tell your friends you're kinky if you don't want me to."<p>

"I'm not sure…I honestly don't know where that came from," he mumbles, his voice that still holds that slight crack of adolescence making me smile. 'I do' I think but am hoping that he's sufficiently distracted from the conversation that resulted in his feeling the need to punish me. Closing my eyes I can still feel the raw burn, the sensation of leather slapping skin. It's delicious. "Where you're going…can I come too?" he asks, his voice small, hesitant, sure I'm going to say no. Damn him. He's weakened my resolve, and my knees.

"It's a tiny apartment…one bedroom, hardly room to swing a cat," I mumble, my cheek still pressed to my warm skin. He pulls my other hand down, laces his fingers with mine.

"I don't care. If you can't come…just let me stay with you, please." Fucking good Canadian kid, how am I supposed to say no when he asks me like that?

"It's not a good area," I add, knowing already that it won't matter to him. He'll follow me like a hungry puppy. "Why don't you go to Mario's place? Or Max's? Let them take care of you," I suggest, like a last ditch effort; one more time, into the breach and all that.

"I need to be away, doctor's orders," he says quietly, finally turning those gold flecked caramel orbs towards me.

"Then go away, somewhere warm or something," I suggest, wondering how I can be lying on a bed and still feel my knees getting weak.

"Will you come?" he asks. I shake my head and a slow smile spreads across those plump, pink lips of his. "Then wherever you go, I go." I open my mouth to object, to tell him that it's an insane idea, but that's when the smoke detector goes off.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"Don't worry, they'll fix it," he assures me or tries to as we watch a motley crew of rough customers in torn jeans and stained t-shirts going into the house.

"They'd better," I growl, brushing the arm he tries to put around my shoulders away.

"Hey, I'm not worried. This guy did some work at my new place, and for the amount I'm paying them he says they'll make it look like new," Sid promises, leaning in to press a quick kiss to my cheek before I can shove him away again. He laughs as he strides away, walking towards the man in the white hard hat holding the clip board that seemed to be in charge of what looks to me like a pack of apes and criminals.

"I don't want it to look new," I call after him. "I want it to look like it did." Sid gives me a 'thumbs up' over his shoulder and for a moment I'm mesmerized by the way his dark blue t-shirt strains across his wide shoulders. "Damn it," I hiss to myself as I give my head a shake. I know I should be counting my lucky stars that Sid was not only willing but happy to pay for the repairs made necessary by the smoke and sprinkler damage in the kitchen but now, as I load what amounts to my entire life into the back of his Land Rover, all I can think about is that _he_ is moving in…with _me_. I need to have my head examined.

"Your brother play hockey?" I look at the bag that Sid has picked up off of the dew laden lawn and make a face.

"No, _I_ did, which is why I feel pretty secure when I call you a whiny little pussy out on the ice," I sneer at him as he hefts my well worn equipment bag into his SUV.

"Hmmm. I sorta pictured you more as a roller girl," he says as he thoughtfully eyes me up like a piece of candy. I roll my eyes at him and walk around to the passenger side of his vehicle. He's in far too good a mood this early in the morning, especially considering we damn near burned the house down. "So where to?" he asks as he climbes in behind the wheel.

"Look, I'll let you take me there but seriously, you should think about what I said about moving in with Mario or…." I let my voice trail away as he stares expectantly back at me. "Fine, whatever, for a few days or whatever," I mutter, handing over the torn edge of the memo pad I'd written the address on but when he tries to take it from me, I hold on. "This doesn't mean anything," I add.

"Whatever," he replies, that big boyish smile on his face making it crystal clear that he believes otherwise. Mumbling under my breath about the extent of his brain damage I reach to plug in my iPod. Sid clears his throat in that noisy way that says 'what do you think you're doing?' I ignore him of course and pick out a playlist that's full of loud, aggressive guitars and lengthy drum solos. "I was thinking," he begins as he pulls the vehicle away from the curb. I reach over and turn up the volume and he sends me a dirty look so I put my hand back in my lap, for now. "I was thinking about the hospital bills," he begins again. I don't answer. I stare out the window, looking at the suburban homes full of people getting ready to take their kids to school and then head to their urban jobs. "If you needed some help with those," he continues, until I turn a steely glare on him.

"I took you to see him so you know. That topic is totally off limits to you." That said, I turn my attention back out the window and try to ignore the fact that I can feel Sidney starting at me.

"You must need help with the bills," he continues, undeterred. "I mean you can't make much at the restaurant," he adds reasonably enough except that I've just said I don't want to talk about it. Not with him.

"Look the whole knight in shining armor thing probably works for a lot of girls," I sigh, running my hand through my hair, something I do when I'm frustrated, "but just save it okay Crosby? I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was five." A heavy silence hangs in the air between us as he drives in silence, but I can hear practically hear him chewing on the corner of his bottom lip. I don't have to look at him to know he's doing it. "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer," I add in what I hope is a softer tone, "but it's mostly covered by insurance and…it would be totally weird for you to help."

"Heard," he replies quietly and then falls into the kind of silence that says he's not happy about it but he's behaving himself. Good enough, for now.

* * *

><p>"It's very…cozy," I note as I drop her bag inside the door of the darkened studio apartment.<p>

"That's just a nice way of saying tiny and pokey," she smirks as she passes me and drops her own bag on one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, a couch that has definitely seen better days. "Now do you see why you can't stay here?" she asks, turning to face me. My only reply is to shut the door behind me and drop my own bag at my feet. Rolling her eyes she grabs her bag and starts pulling clothes out and shoving them in a chest of drawers that looks like it fell off the back of a truck and was dragged down a street riddled with potholes. "What?" she asks without looking up from her task, "my good will chic not doing it for you?"

"Just…this is exactly why I offered…," I begin until she shoots me that look that makes me swallow the rest of what I was about to say.

"You don't hear me complaining or asking," she insists and then goes back to what stuffing clothes in the worn dresser.

"But you don't have to live like this," I try again, looking towards the kitchen with its outdated appliances and shabby pressboard cupboards. I can't imagine her cooking there and I can't help but think about her in the kitchen of my new home, in the kitchen with all of its brand new high end appliances, most of which have yet to even be broken in.

"And _you_ don't have to stay _here_," she snaps back, leaning heavily on the dresser, her eyes closed. "Please, now that you've humiliated me by coming here can't you please just go?" I want to tell her that this reminds me of living in a dorm at Shattucks but I know damn well that isn't what is going to make this better. I also know if I ask her to come home with me right now she won't go. So instead I use the only language that seems to work well between us and move my body behind hers, wrapping my hands around her upper arms to still her while I press a kiss to the nape of her neck. "Crosby that won't…." But it does. With my lips on the curve of her neck I tell her I don't care where she lives. With my arms around her I tell her that I want to be with her no matter where we are.

She fights me, like she always does, turning stiff and unyielding in my arms but when I sink my teeth into her shoulder I feel a fine trembling run through her entire body.

"_Things_ don't matter," I whisper, holding her close, holding her against me.

"The fuck they don't," she chuckles, finally easing up enough to dig her fingers into my hair. "Do you know how much I'd give to live in a place like Flower and Vero have?" she hisses while her other hand guides one of mine up onto her breast.

"I can give it to you," I tell her, feeling her nipple hardening under my palm.

"I don't want it be _given_ to me, I want to _earn_ it," she growls and grinds her ass against me, against the need I can't hide from her. "I want to have the best restaurant in the city. I want my peach tart to be on the cover of Bon Appétit. I want to be on fucking Iron Chef," she adds, guiding my other hand down to the front of her jeans.

"Then let me help you," I insist as I unsnap her jeans and slide my hand inside. She's warm and wet and as I slide a single finger over her clit she moans and presses even harder back against me. "Consider it a loan or we could be partners, however you want to do it but please, let me help you."

"You mean like how you're helping me now?" she asks, reaching back to slide her palm over the tent my aching cock is making in my jeans. "Like how you're scratching my itch?" she adds in a voice husky and low as I muffle a moan by pressing my lips to her neck.

"Because we're good together," I growl, picking her up off of her feet and physically carrying her to the small double bed tucked into the corner of the room. She laughs when she lands on her knees on the bed, and there's an evil lilt to the sound as I reach down to grab her ankles, tugging at the bottoms of each leg of her jeans. She lets me pull them off and then flips over like a fish and lies there, grinning up at me.

"We have good sex, that doesn't mean we'd be good business partners," she points out with a raised eyebrow as she watches me tug off my t-shirt.

"Why not?" I ask, stepping out of my shoes as she lies there, just watching, as if I'm some kind of show.

"Well, for one thing, because you don't know anything about the restaurant industry," she points at as she slips her thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties and starts to tug them down.

"I'd let you run the whole thing. I wouldn't interfere," I offer which causes her to pause with her panties down around her knees which she's pulled up to make it easier to get them off. "I know it sounds like I'm blowing my own horn but just putting my name to it will help you and the guys have had your cooking, they'll come and that will help too and if they come some of the Steelers are bound to come too and…," I pause when a thoughtful look crosses her face. But just when it seems like I'm getting somewhere she shakes her head and then tugs off her panties and tosses them on the floor.

"I don't have time for that. That would be a full time commitment and I don't have time for that now," she sighs and then scrambles back on the bed, pulling her sweatshirt over her head and tossing it aside too. "Well?" She looks up at me expectantly, leaning on her elbows, her knees bent up, naked as the day she was born and suddenly this feels seedy, dirty and I can't go through with it. Not least of all because I can't understand why she won't accept my offer.

"I don't understand," I begin, careful to look in her eyes and not at her pert breasts with their pink tips or at the pink valley between her thighs. "If it's what you want, if it's your dream, why wouldn't you want it?"

"Because…well you've seen why," she sighs and stares up at me with an expression on her face that clearly suggests that she's not going to explain herself to me, again. I open my mouth to say that even he would want this for her, but I'm interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the lock.

* * *

><p>"Oh holy fucking shit!" I jump off the bed, grabbing the nearest article of clothing which happens to be his t-shirt, and tug it over my head just in time for the door to swing open as I silently curse myself for not putting the safety chain on. That would have given me at least a few seconds to pull my jeans on. As it is there's nowhere to hide from the shrewd gaze of the red head in the leather jacket and fishnets. She looks at me, down at my bare legs and then at Sidney, her gaze raking his smooth chest appreciatively before her bright red lips turn down in a frown.<p>

"Don't even try and tell me this isn't what it looks like," she says bluntly, dropping a bag of groceries on the counter.

"I wouldn't dream of it Joy," I mutter, grabbing my jeans off of the floor and moving behind Sid who thankfully hasn't said a word although I can tell just by the look on his face as he watches me tug them on that he's dying to. "Two minutes," I mutter to him as I get back on my feet and stride by him, head down to hide the flames of mortification licking at my cheeks. "Not here," I hiss at her as I grab her arm and propel her towards the door.

I keep dragging her behind me until we're down the stairs, out the door and into the coffee shop at the corner where I deposit her at one of the small tables outside while I go in to order, and to give myself a couple of minutes to let my heart rate slow. My hands are no longer shaking when I take the two steaming coffees out and put one in front of her while I burn my tongue on the other.

"My son is lying in that hospital bed and…."

"_And_ he knows about this, just so we're clear," I interject, putting the cup down and running my finger around the rim, because despite the fact that I have been telling myself that I'm well within my rights to fulfill my needs, I can't meet her gaze.

"So this is what you do behind his back? Bring other men to his apartment and into his bed?" she says, calmly but with acid dripping from her tongue.

"It _is_ my apartment too," I point out, knowing that I sound a little like a petulant child which seems appropriate because I feel like I've been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

"So that's it, you've given up on him haven't you? You don't think he's going to get better?" A wry smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, even as I try to fight it. More than finding me with another man, this is the issue that has her tapping her long, blood red fingernails impatiently on the table.

"He's _not_ going to get better," I reply simply. When I look up at her I know that there is regret in my eyes but I also know that there is sincerity. I'm simply telling the truth.

"He could. There are cases," she begins but I'm already shaking my head.

"Not for the injury he has Joy." She purses her lips and stares back at me but what I see in her eyes isn't anger, or even judgment; it's fear. "I don't like it any more than you do, but I've had to come to terms with it and part of that is why you saw what you saw and the only person I have to apologize to for that is Kev and the funny thing is, he'll say I don't have to and maybe that makes it okay but probably not," I add as I reach for her hand and hold it in both of mine. "But I don't love him any less. I'll never stop loving him and he knows that." Tears glimmer in her eyes, eyes that are the same sky blue as Kevin's and I blink back tears of my own. "I should probably ask for the keys back," I add quietly, withdrawing my hands. She reaches into her pocket and with trembling hands drops the keys onto the table.

"Will you see him later?" she asks quietly and this time it's her that is staring into her cooling coffee.

"Every day."

"Good," she nods and then she gets up and, grabbing her purse, reaches for her wallet.

"I've got it Joy," I tell her, glad I'd had a five stuffed into the pocket of my jeans. I look up into her eyes and we share a weak smile before she turns and slowly walks down the street in her high stiletto heels.

* * *

><p>When she comes back into the apartment I start to ask her who that woman was but something in her expression, in the guarded look in her eyes stops me. I watch her drop a set of keys on the counter before she turns and slides the chain lock across the door and then she turns and for the very first time Violet is the one wearing a vulnerable expression.<p>

"Just…I'll explain later," she says quietly, tugging my t-shirt up over her head as she walks over to where I'm sitting on the edge of the small bed. "Just…, fuck, can you just hold me?"

Nodding, I make room for her beside me and she just sort of crumples into my arms. I lie back on the bed and she comes with me, her head on my chest, under my chin, her cool skin pressed to mine as I wrap her up in my arms.

I'm wondering if there's anything to say, not that I'm sure what I would say if I could but when I feel her shoulders start to shake and then the damp drip of her tears on my chest and I'm guessing that she's past the point where words will help anyway. So I do what she's been doing for me, I offer the escape of my body and try to ignore that she's crying when I kiss her, that I can taste the salt of her tears on her lips or that she sobs when I slide her jeans off and bury myself deep inside of her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

It's dark and there's the still, quiet feeling in the air that tells me it's late when the sound of my phone ringing and vibrating wakes me up. I reach for it but only my fingertips brush the smooth case and I can't turn to get a better grip on it, not with her using me like a pillow. Not that I mind; for once she hasn't snuck out or rolled away to clutch the edge of the bed like she can't stand to be near to me.

Stretching I manage, just, to pull it close enough to grab it and hit the accept button.

"_Where__ are__ you_?" I pull my phone back so I can look at the time and the caller i.d. Max. Who else would call at eleven o'clock at night?

"Bed," I reply as quietly as possible.

"_Mon __ami,__we__'__ve __been __texting __you.__Come __out__ and __play_." It's not really a question. It's more like a demand.

"That's okay, I'm good," I reply, glancing down at the pale profile of the woman in my arms. Yeah, I'm pretty perfect exactly where I am.

"_Don__'__t__ be __a __part y__pooper__ Creature_," another voice yells into the phone over the sound of a heavy techno beat. I smile as I imagine Jordy swaying on his feet wearing that big easy grin of his, a girl under each arm.

"Another time," I chuckle, intending to hang up but she begins to stir and I find myself looking down into her silvery grey eyes as she yawns.

"Who is it?" she asks as she blinks up at me, sleep making her gaze unfocussed.

"Max, some of the guys, they're at a club. They want us to come," I explain.

"_Hey,__who__'__s __there?__Oh__my__god__Creature__'__s__got__a__girl_!" I wince as I hear Jordy telling half of Pittsburgh that I'm in bed with a woman. If they knew….

"You wanna go?" she asks, pushing herself up so that she's facing me, her chin on the back of her hands, her hands flat on the middle of my chest. Go? Leave this bed? Not in a hundred years. Not after she let me comfort her. Not after she's allowed me to hold her for hours.

"Only if you want to," I mutter, hoping she'll say no. She smiles and mutters something about being up now and that we may as well as she rolls away from me, gets up and heads for the bathroom. I watch her go, making a mental note to punch Max the minute I see him. "Yeah, I guess. Where are you guys?"

* * *

><p>It's only the quizzical looks that Flower and Vero give me as they welcome me with a hug that reminds me that no one knows about us. Or they didn't until the moment we walk into the club together, even though I keep my hands deep in the pockets of my jacket when he reaches for me. I could lie, but the minute his friends start to pound him on the back in that age old cave man greeting I know there isn't much use but that doesn't mean I have to verbalize it, so when Vero asks, I just shake my head and continue on to the bar.<p>

I should never have let him in my life, let alone in my apartment. He's too earnest, too good. I clearly misjudged him. He's not really the selfish, self centered prick I'd always pegged him as being; at least not all of the time.

"So, there is something a little more to you and our Captain than just friends n'est-ce pas?" I don't have to look to know the silky smooth voice behind me belongs to Letang and I curse under my breath. This is another reason that I really didn't want whatever is going on between me and Crosby getting out; men and their stupid bro-code. I really, _really_ didn't want to be off limits to the pretty dark haired defenseman.

"It's not what he thinks it is," I offer, keeping my eyes on the bartender as he pours my rum and Coke. Kris is handsome enough in his full gear but in street clothes he is the embodiment of sex on legs. I really don't want to look into his dark eyes and know that I've been struck of the list of possibilities and placed in the 'just friends' column. Not while my knees get weak and my panties go up in flames.

"And what is it mon capitaine thinks it is?" he asks, taking up a position beside me so that his arm brushes mine and the heat that radiates off his body makes it feel like I'm standing beside a roaring fire.

"What it's not," I reply as I dig a bill out of my pocket only to find that Kris is already holding one out as my drink is handed to me. "It's not a relationship. We're not dating and it's not serious, _at __all_," I add, turning to lean my back against the bar and giving my drink a stir with the straw, still avoiding the gaze I can feel, almost like he's touching me.

"He looks happy," Kris observes and when I look over to where he's still the center of a group of his teammates, Sid's grin is obvious even from across the darkened club. "He also looks at you like you _belong_ to him," he adds and I can hear the query in the statement as well as his raised eyebrow.

"Well I don't," I answer quickly, turning my head as soon as Sid tries to catch my eye. It feels like everybody wants more from me than I have to give today. It feels like I'm being forced into a corner and when you force a wildcat into a corner…. "Do you wanna go somewhere?" I ask, putting my mostly untouched drink on the bar. His dark eyes search my expression but I know he won't find even the smallest hint of indecision in my eyes. When someone tries to force me into a corner I scratch.

"Oui, okay, if you like."

* * *

><p>"Where are you going?" She looks down at where my hand is on her arm and then looks up at me with what I can only describe as a death stare. I've lined up across the face off dot from big guys with dead stares but none of them have anything on her.<p>

"Wherever I want," she deadpans, shrugging off my hold on her and turning to follow Tanger towards the exit.

"We just moved in together," I hiss, grabbing her arm again and pulling her around to face me.

"Nooo," she sneers at me, looking at me like I'm something nasty on the bottom of her shoe, "I let you stay with me, that's _it_."

"But…," and I don't know what I want to say after that, or I do but I'm afraid to say it out loud. She's already made it perfectly clear she doesn't want to hear how I really feel. So instead of saying it I just let her see it in my eyes only this time it doesn't make the ice castle she's built around her heart melt even a little.

"I keep telling you, I won't be your girlfriend and no matter how many times you try and make it true Crosby, it just _isn__'__t._" The venom in her tone paralyzes my heart and I put my free hand up to my chest to see if it's actually stopped and wonder if that's why it hurts so much. She wrenches free of my grasp for a second time and I'm left standing there wondering if I'm having an actual heart attack while she strides away in her knee high boots and short tight black skirt, looking tough and beautiful.

"I did try to warn you mon ami," Flower says quietly, handing me a glass of something that I don't even taste as I throw it down my throat. It leaves behind a warm trail of liquid fire that does little to alleviate my immediate symptoms.

"Wouldn't have mattered, even if I had listened to you," I mutter, handing him the glass back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand while I tell myself that it would be pathetic to chase after them; that I might not like what I find.

"There you are!" Jordy suddenly appears in front of me, just as I'd predicted, propped up by two bleary eyed but very pretty girls. "Wanna share?" he offers and both girls giggle but neither of them objects to being offered up like party favors. I contemplate all being fair in love and war and all that but I can't quite summon up the enthusiasm to go through with it; maybe after another couple of glasses of JD.

"Maybe later," I reply, plastering my best for public consumption smile.

"Good-Fuckin'- enough," Jordy laughs, "then let's fucking dance!"

* * *

><p>"Ma chère, where are you taking me?" I ignore the question, turning to press a playful kiss against his lips before continuing to drag him behind me up the stairs. The building is quiet and still as if it is sleeping, just like its occupants. Even as we tiptoe down the hallway it feels like I'm not the only holding my breath.<p>

"This way," I whisper, leading him past the abandoned nurse's station. Kris just shakes his head and silently laughs at me. He thinks this is a game. He has no idea.

I leave the offering we had to stop to buy at a late night grocery to get on the desk and then, holding my finger up to my lips beckon for Kris to wait as I ease a bag from the bottom drawer of the small dresser beside the bed. I mouth the words 'I'll be right back' to Kris as I press him into the chair in the shadows beside the bed and then draw the privacy curtain.

My heart hammering beneath my ribs, I make my way down the hall to a bathroom on tip toe and check beneath each stall before I shimmy out of the form fitting black dress I'm wearing and don the cartoonish sexy nurse's uniform right down to the paper hat that you never, ever see a real nurse wearing.

When I walk back down the hallway, the only sound that I hear, besides the rapid beating of my own heart, is the click of the heels of my boots on the floor. Even the normal sounds of the hospital, the beeping of the heart and respiratory monitors, fades into the background; at least until I slip behind the privacy curtain and stand at the foot of the bed and look into Kev's eyes. He's awake and the expression in his gaze clearly asks '_what__the__fuck__are__you__doing?_'

I pick up the clipboard at the end of his bed. The last time his vitals were checked was only half an hour ago. They won't be checking again for at least another hour. I glance over at where Kris is sitting, his gaze riveted hungrily on me. I wonder if he's even noticed that Kev is awake. I'm guessing by the eager look on his face probably not, that he still thinks this is some elaborate kinky game. I flash him a smile that's meant to encourage him to continue thinking this is all an act as I put the clipboard back and then turn my attention back to Kev's who is watching me with an intense curiosity.

I run my hand down the line of one of his drips and turn down the volume on his heart monitor before turning to lean over him, giving him a face full of cleavage while I adjust his pillows.

"Do you remember when you told me you wanted to see me with a man?" I whisper, my lips brushing his cheek. When I look down at him he blinks twice in rapid succession. I frown down at him and he blinks twice again and then his gaze shifts quickly to where Kris is sitting, his gaze riveted on my cleavage. "Oh he's too pretty for you?" I tease but Kev blinks twice again, hard, like he's trying his best to get his point across and I feel my blood start to boil.

No matter what I do today, whatever I do I'm upsetting someone. It's either not good enough, or too much and right in that moment, the little girl inside of me starts to cry and scream '_what__about__me?__What__about__what__I__want?_'

With my bottom lip trembling but fire in my veins I walk…no, prowl around the hospital bed and the man in it helpless to stop me, looking right at Kris like he'd turned into a big piece of raw meat and I haven't eaten in days.

"Nurse, I think I have a boo boo," Kris purrs like a cat as I straddle his lap and begin to undo the snaps on the front of the costume.

"Let me kiss it better then," I purr right back and plantmy lips over his. His hands slide around to my ass and over the bright red frilled panties that came with the costume and I feel his lips pull into a smile and I growl. I don't want him to smile. I want him to think that I'm sexy. I want him to want to do things to punish me. This isn't funny. I am a bad, bad girl.

I run my hand down the solid wall of his chest and down between us and pressemy hand over his package. He moans into mouth as I squeeze and then it's my turn to smile.

"Is that better?" I ask, moving my lips and tongue along his jaw and down his neck, scraping my teeth over his jugular.

"Oui mon infirmière," he whispers as I slide the zipper on his jeans down and my hand inside. "Ah…ah oui."

"I know how to make it even better," I whisper against his mouth but he's already ahead of me, pressing my panties aside with one hand and pushing the front of the costume open so it's out of the way with his other hand. I shrugg it off over my shoulder as I push myself up enough to lower myself over him with a long, languid sigh.

Even with the sound turned down I can hear Kev's heart monitor speed up as s we begin to move. I feel Kris's hands slid up to my waist, feel him press his thick length up inside of me and as good as that feels it really doesn't matter. What I feel most is the pair of sky blue eyes burning into the back of my skull and the pain in my chest as my heart is cleaved in two.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"Just a few more minutes." I don't look over at Flower. He's already been too good, sitting with me in the dark, putting up with my panicked ramblings. Asking him to stay past the witching hour seems like too much but I just can't leave. Not yet. In the part of my brain that's still capable of reason, I know that she's probably gone home with Tanger. But the part of my brain that believes that somewhere under all of that seething anger and resentment she has feelings for me still wants to believe that she's going to come walking down the damp street, back to me.

"Alright," Flower says, changing to a different, a louder playlist on his iPod, "but just a few more minutes. V will be worried."

"You're lucky." He gets this little smile on his face and shrugs. "

"Sometimes, oui, but it's not all perfect. Sometimes I wish I had my own space too," he says quietly, staring out at the rain slicked street. I shake my head. I'd rather have someone to come home to than to go home to nothing at all. If I have too much time and space I do what I'm doing right now; expecting the worst, over thinking and over analyzing. They could be somewhere comparing tats over coffee. Just because the only language Violet and I have in common right now seems to be sex doesn't mean that's what's happening with her and Tanger. Except that's all I can see, all I can imagine in my head, her legs wrapped around him, his hair brushing her face and her making all of those noises that I've become accustomed to.

"Why am I doing this?" It's the question Flower's just too nice to ask me. If it's what I need to do, he's a good enough friend not to tell me I'm wasting my time but as soon as I say it I see his lips tug up at the corners and his brow go up and he doesn't have to actually agree out loud for me to know he's been thinking that very thing. "I know she keeps telling me she doesn't feel the same but I think she does," I say, answering my own question. I can't give up on her. I just can't.

"If she does or she doesn't, it seems like she doesn't want to and I think you have to listen to that," Marc says softly, his fingers tapping the steering wheel in time to some song that I don't know, something they'd listen to in the room but that would never be on my iPod. I know he's right, or part of me does. It's her life, her right to live it the way she wants to. I just can't believe she wants to be unhappy.

"I love her." That's the real reason. I didn't mean for it to happen but it has and when I want something, really want something, I just can't give up on it.

"Je le sais mon ami, je le sais."

* * *

><p>"I just need to change," I whisper, feeling his chest still rising and falling rapidly beneath mine, his arms still locked around me. I'd wanted this, or thought I did, but now I want to be anywhere but here as fast as I can. "Wait for me outside." He nods, his long, soft dark hair falling into his eyes when he does. He goes to kiss me and I turn, giving him my cheek. I need a shower. I need to scrub my skin with one of those metal brushes you clean grills with and even then I don't think I'll be able to get the feeling of his touch off of me.<p>

He helps me onto my feet and holds me there because my knees give. My legs feel like spaghetti, like they should after a good old fashioned fucking. I want to cut them off, traitors. I feel his hand slide up to cup my cheek but I won't look at him. I can't. I'm worried that if I see a reflection of myself in his eyes I'll spit in his face or try to scratch his eyes out.

"I'll be right outside," he says tenderly, leaning in like he's going to kiss my cheek again but his teeth sink into my earlobe instead. "Kinky little minx." I try to smile but it feels less than genuine. Not that he notices. Note to self, the dark prince is not exactly on top of the details.

As soon as the privacy curtain swings closed behind him I turn to face the fury in the blue eyes of the man lying in the bed, staring daggers at me. I bend to pick up the costume from the floor and hold it up in front of myself. Yeah, so now I'm shy.

"I did this for you," I hiss at him, keeping my voice pitched low even though it seems to echo through the entire ward. Kev blinks twice, hard and then shifts his gaze to the alphabet board. Rolling my eyes, knowing already that I'm about to get some kind of lecture, I stamp my way around the bed, dropping the costume at the foot, shoving the board in front of him and then reaching for my dress that I'd balled up and tossed on the floor earlier. He waits for me to pull it over my head, staring daggers at me until I make my way beside the bed.

T-H-E O-T-H-E-R O-N-E

"Why does it matter?" I snap back at him and he blinks, once. He's not pissed about me fucking someone else, he's just pissed about who I'm fucking and I don't understand it. "Fine, whatever, he's too clingy. He doesn't understand that I need some space." Kev stares at me, searching my face and then I can almost see him smiling, at least in his eyes.

B-S

"Oh so you can read my mind now can you?" I snort tugging the hem of the dress down. It feels too short all of a sudden. When I look back up at him he's patiently waiting for me to pay attention.

W-A-Y H-E L-O-O-K A-T U G-O-O-D

I run that statement through my mind, trying to make sense of it and when I don't answer right away he rolls his eyes at me and starts again.

H-E C-A-R-E-S

"Yeah, too much," I mutter, wrapping my arms around myself. The room feels a lot colder than it did before.

U R R-U-N-N-I-N-G

I lick my lips and open my mouth to object or at least to explain that I have good reason to run from Sidney but his blue eyes have this way of piercing my soul and I just can't do it. So I say nothing. He stares at me for a long time. So long that I start to feel like a little kid wilting under the angry gaze of a parent.

D-O U T-H-I-N-K I W-A-N-T T-O L-I-V-E L-I-K-E T-H-I-S

Now I really don't know what to say. I stare down at him, at the still form in the bed and all I can think about is that first night, the first time he opened his eyes after days of being in a coma and I knew he was still in there. I was so relieved that he wasn't gone. It's not like I've never wondered what kind of living hell he's in and it's not like I've never thought it was like being in some kind of prison but I never really took it this far.

"You're alive," I whisper, reaching out to touch his face, the scruff on his cheek abrading the palm of my hand.

U T-H-I-N-K T-H-I-S I-S A L-I-F-E

I want to berate him. I want to scream at him that it's certainly better than the fucking alternative but the way his eyes shine as his gaze probes mine stops me from saying anything of that out loud.

I W-A-N-T U T-O B H-A-P-P-Y S-O U C-A-N L-E-T M-E G-O

"Let you…?" I can't even say the last word. I can't force my tongue and lips to form it. I can only shake my head. "You don't mean that." One blink. "You don't…Kevin…you can't mean that." One blink, firm and emphatic. Tears spring to my eyes and I find myself slamming my fist down in the middle of his chest and saying the same word over and over again. "No, no, no!"

And then there is a pair of arms around me and just for a minute I let myself believe they are his and I press my cheek to his chest and cry.

* * *

><p>There had been an argument about leaving me here on these cement steps in the rain. Something about how I am and how much money is in my wallet and none of that mattered. My stubbornness, as usual, overwhelmed his concern and the fact that, of course, he was right and eventually I watched the taillights of Flower's lambo disappear into the distance.<p>

That seems like a long time ago now. A sort of hush has fallen over the street and I can't remember the last time a bus or a taxi has past by here, when a car has splashed through a puddle or I heard footsteps passing by on the sidewalk. I almost think I'm imagining it when I hear that distinctive sound of keys on a key ring and the click of high heels on cement. I lift my head from where it's been resting on the back of my arms across my knees and blink sleep out of my eyes.

"I might have known," she mumbles as she waits for me to scramble to my feet and turn so that she can pass me on the dark, damp narrow stairwell up to her apartment. She shoves the key in the lock while I stare down the steps, waiting for Tanger to show up but other than the scrape of her keys in the locks, the only sound is my own ragged breathing.

She pushes the door open and I follow her inside, standing in the doorway while she dumps her leather jacket on the back of the nearest chair and then falls into the next one and bends to unzip her boots, pulling them off with a sigh and rubbing at her feet.

"You can close the door, if you insist on being here," she grumbles, getting back up onto her feet and heading across the room towards the bathroom. "And don't look so fucking hopeful," she adds as she drags that clinging black dress over her head and drops it carelessly to the floor as she walks, "I did fuck him." My chest gets tight and I have an overwhelming urge to cough to get my heart restarted again. I slam the door shut and throw the locks. As I follow her into the bathroom I can hear this voice in my head telling me how pathetic I am but I ignore it just like I ignore her attempt to close the bathroom door on me and shut me out. She looks up at me in the mirror as she reaches for her toothbrush and I see my own eyes, too big, too afraid of what she'll say next, reflected back at me. She stares at me for a long time while she brushes her teeth and I can see thoughts, cruel thoughts, flying behind her gray eyes as she studies me, but by some miracle I see the moment she decides to let those go. "Oh don't worry Crosby, I don't think he'll be back for seconds any time soon," she muses and then spits and turns off the water. "Unlike you, it took him no time at all to figure out I'm bad news," she adds, and then steps past me and heads for the shower. "Now why don't you go home Crosby and leave me in fucking peace?"

I should do it. As if it's not bad enough I come second to a practically dead guy, now I've been cuckolded by one of my teammates and she obviously has no regard for my feelings at all. I should go and save myself from further degradation but I can't do it. I can't leave this room or her. I watch her pull the shower curtain aside and step into the small, old stained and chipped claw foot tub and stare at her long smooth legs and round high breasts and I want her. Despite everything I want her.

Tugging off my t-shirt and shoving my jeans down and kicking them aside I climb in behind her and as if she knew I would she silently hands me the bottle of shampoo.


	16. Chapter 16

_This is kinda short and I guess it could have been part of the last chapter but whatcha gonna do? In the famous words of Todd Bertuzzi, it is what it is._

**Chapter 16**

"He wants to die."

How she knows I'm awake or how long she knew I can't guess, but I've been watching her leaning against the wall, staring out at the night for a while now. Not at the street but up, at the night sky, or whatever part of it she might be able to see through the dingy window. I give up the pretense of sleep and swing my feet over the side of the bed.

She glances over at me, briefly, and then turns her gaze back out at the night. Rain drips down the window pane, leaving rivers of silver behind. Her arms are crossed, her expression carefully blank. I want to go to her, put my arms around her and comfort her but tonight she hasn't wanted it so I stay where I am. I also keep my opinion to myself. I'm guessing she doesn't want it anyway.

"He says he's been waiting for me to move on with my life. I don't know why he'd think that." She looks down at her arm, at the full sleeve of tattoos that look, in this half light, almost like they're moving on her arm. I watch the dragon coiling around her bicep and wonder if I'm seeing things. Of course if I was going to imagine something it would be that tonight never happened. I wonder if she's wishing the same thing.

"Maybe he just wants you to be happy." I cringe, waiting for her to lash out at me but as I watch her, waiting for her to turn and glare at me she almost smiles instead, a slight upturn of her lips, a little light leaking into her eyes.

"Because I can't live my life around a man who can't hold me, can't kiss me?" She says it as if it's been said before. Like it's a suggestion that she's heard too many times. I neither agree nor disagree. It seems self evident but then I'm the one who can't believe someone with as much passion inside of her as Violet seems to have can live for a man like that and just thinking that makes me feel like less of a person so I don't say anything. "I love him," she says simply but her voice cracks at the end and I see her shoulders start to shake, her lips begin to tremble. It takes every ounce of will power I have to stay there sitting on the side of her small double bed in my jeans, to do and say nothing. "I guess you find that hard to believe," she says finally, wiping at her eyes and nose with the back of her hand, her gaze still aimed out the window but I don't think she's actually seeing anything.

"I think that I don't know what you were like…or what he was like before," I offer because it seems like a neutral position, sort of like the carefully scripted answers I give after a game; '_it__ was__ a__ team__ effort__'_ or _'__the__ other__ team __had__ a __great __game__'_. It's not much of an answer but it's safe, it's designed not to offend and right now that seems like a good target to aim at. "Why don't you tell me?" As soon as I say it I expect her to attack me and for a moment the gleam in her eyes and the thin line of her lips says that she's thinking the same thing but then she turns back to the window, and her expression softens.

"He builds… _built_ bikes, cars…anything with an engine. He was always cranking on something…getting greasy," she adds, reaching up to trace the silvery path of a raindrop down the window pane. "He drew too," she continues, her gaze moving over my head. I turn to see a framed picture on the wall that I'd never noticed before. I can't make out the details in the dark but even in the gloom I can see that it's her, or a more robust pin up girl version of her lying on the back seat of some big land yacht of a car, her legs draped over the side. I find myself wishing that she would look at me wearing the kittenish smile again. That playful smile I haven't seen since that first night.

"Maybe that has something to do with it," I say, very careful to keep my tone neutral. "He liked to work with his hands so it must be pretty frustrating not to be able to. I guess it might be like if someone told me I'd never play again." Again I get ready for a blast but when I look up, expecting to see malevolence in her eyes but what I'm surprised to see is shock; shock and sudden comprehension.

* * *

><p>My brain hurts.<p>

What '_was__'_ and what '_is__'_ are warring in my head, not to mention the push and pull of a myriad of emotions that are beginning to feel a lot like quicksand and me, without a rope.

"I need a minute."

I practically sprint to the bathroom to stick my head under the tap. I can drive a motorbike down a set of stairs but right now, standing on my own two feet, I have the distinct and unsettling sensation of being in free-fall without a parachute.

When Kevin said he wanted to see me with other men, I had never once considered that he meant 'in a relationship'. I feel like such a selfish cunt for assuming that all this time he'd been giving me permission to 'take care of my needs' when what he'd really meant was that I should be finding someone else to be with and, I guess, to transfer my affections to. It's an epiphany that has my stomach feeling like it's full of writhing snakes.

And then there's the fact that he wants me to let him go, by which he means he wants me to pull the plug on him. He wants me to take his life.

"This is a lot to process." I raise my head and my gaze to meet his in the mirror and if I wasn't so fucking miserable I think I might laugh.

"Ya think?" I sneer, reaching for a towel and rubbing it through my hair while brushing by him. I know he's not really to blame for any of this but it is his fault that he's here and therefore a convenient scapegoat and I certainly don't feel grateful that he's helping me to arrive at these life altering conclusions.

"He must love you a lot," Sid says in a tentative voice that tells me he knows how inane and unhelpful that particular observation is. Christ, it's like he wants me to tear a strip off of him.

"Don't help Crosby," I hiss, tossing the towel at the end of the bed. "I don't feel particularly deserving of that at the moment." I leave out the part where I say that I don't deserve it from either of them because the last thing I need right now is for him to know that Kev sees him as part of the puzzle; Crosby, the knight in shining fucking armor. It's just exactly the role he's been trying to play this entire time. I guess that makes me the damsel in distress. That particular thought makes me snicker. "Why are you here anyway? I fucking treat you like shit. Why the _fuck_ are you here? Do you really think that you're gonna pick up the fucking pieces and somehow I'm gonna turn into that girl?" I ask, hooking my thumb over my shoulder at the picture that represents better times, happier times.

"Maybe." His simple, straightforward and evidently honest answer steals my voice. I stare at him, unsure what, if anything, to say to that. "I think that person is still inside of you and…well you know how I feel," he adds with a shrug and goes back to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah, you want in my pants," I reply crassly, feeling the need to draw blood, to open a wound on someone else so I'm not the only one in pain. The sting registers in his eyes but he doesn't rise to it, doesn't lash out at me like maybe I want him to. Instead a sad, weary sort of smile tugs at the corners of those full, ripe pink lips of his and he shakes his head.

"I'm done," he says softly, running his fingers through his short, thick dark hair. "That's been the one way you've let me in, let me get close to you but I'm not doing it anymore," he adds, glancing up at me and then back down. "What you do now, how you handle this…that's on you."

It almost feels like a slap in the face and not the 'wake up' kind. I have this sudden sense of abandonment as if I've unexpectedly morphed into a small child and I have an overwhelming urge to stamp my feet and throw a tantrum. Not really mature but then it doesn't seem like I've made a lot of very mature choices tonight.

"If this is some kind of ploy…if you think I'm gonna beg or something," I begin as he gets up and pads over to where he'd left his shirt on the floor. I watch while he pulls it back on and then begins to search for his shoes.

"No, I can't imagine that," he chuckles softly as he grabs his shoes and goes back to sit on the edge of the bed. "Whatever you're going to do, you don't need me around while you're trying to make up your mind," he says quietly, pulling on one shoe and leaning over to tie it. I watch his fingers as they tug the laces tight, as they make the bow, and knowing what those fingers are capable of makes my mouth go a little dry.

"I'm not gonna chase you," I tell him, almost like it's a threat. He ties the second shoe and then drops his hands between his knees and looks up at me.

"You've made that pretty fucking clear Violet," he smiles in that resigned sort of way and then the silence draws out until I'm squirming. It's clearly my turn to say something but I just don't know what he expects me to say, or do. Finally he drops his gaze from mine and pushes himself up off of my bed. "I know you don't want to hear it," he begins and I cringe. He's right, I don't. "But I think you need to right now. I think you need to know that I love you." Tentatively he looks up at me, through his long eyelashes, slowly meeting my gaze like he expects me to throw his words back at him. So I do.

"Well don't," I snap, my voice catching unexpectedly in my throat as I say it. "Look what happened to the last man who said that." He nods, a somber smile pulling his full lips up at the corners.

"You didn't do that to him. You didn't put him in that hospital bed." I open my mouth to tell him that I know it, that I certainly don't need him to tell me that but the words don't come. Instead I just stand there while he moves towards me, while he lifts a hand and cradles my cheek in it and gazes at me like I'm something fragile and delicate. "You have to let someone in sometime Vi. Maybe it's not me, but at some point, you're going to have to let yourself feel again."

His caramel gaze searches mine for a long moment, like maybe he's hoping that I'll break, that I'll throw myself into his arms and be the girl that he wants me to be and then, with a little shake of his head, he leans in and kisses my forehead, his lips lingering there for a long moment before he pulls back and looks at me one last time in a way that implies that he's memorizing my face; like he doesn't expect to see it, or me, again.

"Just fucking go already if you're gonna," I snipe and turn my face away. Leave me here in my misery, I want to say but that would be admitting that I might need him and I don't. I don't need him or anyone else. I can take care of myself.

"You know how to find me, if you need me," he says softly. I shrug and stare out the window.

"I won't," I reply. I hear him sigh and then I hear his footfalls retreating softly across the room and then finally, the click of the door closing behind him.

I watch him stand out on the sidewalk with his phone in his hand. Sidney fucking Crosby standing out on the empty street in the middle of the night; it's a sight that may as well have a blinking neon sign over it that reads 'rob me'. I watch him until a cab rolls up a few minutes later and then, as he gets in, I turn away from the window so he won't see me watching over him like I care. Because I don't.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Two hits; me hitting him and him hitting the floor, that's all it takes to silence a group of guys that I don't remember ever being quiet.

"I'll take that," Kris says quietly, still lying on the floor with his hair in his eyes while he rubs his chin where I just hit it. "But that chick is a fucking mess so I hope you gave her a piece of this too."

"I'm not gonna talk about her to you," I hiss down at him and then hold my hand out to help him to his feet. He stares at it like he's thinking about it, like he doesn't really trust me but in the end he decides I'm not Jordy or Cookie and takes it and lets me haul him to his feet. "But yeah, I know she's a mess," I admit in as low a tone as I can, as near to him as I can without it looking like I'm trying to make out with him. More like I'm threatening him. Me, trying to pull off some kind of Soprano moment; even I don't really think I could pull it off.

"If it helps," he says just as quietly, putting his hand on my shoulder like he's forgiving me, and maybe he is, "it was your name she called out." I feel my chest puffing up before my head can remind the rest of my body that I shouldn't feel proud of that. Fortunately Tanger gives my shoulder a squeeze and leaves it at that. He neither continues to rub in the fact that he fucked her nor does he continue to talk to me when I'm trying my best to be pissed off and aloof about it.

I watch him walk across the room and am glad he doesn't have the swagger that one of the guys would normally have after bagging a girl the night before. In fact, when he turns to sit on the bench and he runs his hand through his long dark hair he actually manages to pull off meek and apologetic. Whether he actually is or not I'm not sure, but it makes me feel minutely better.

"What the fuck was that about?" Cookie asks, looking from Tanger to me and back with that eager wanting in on the action look on his face.

"A girl," Jordy answers before I can. "A bat shit crazy fucking girl at that." I turn to glare up at him but the blonde stork has the good sense to hold up his hands in supplication and turn and leave before I give him a dose of what's good for him.

"The crazy ones are always the best in bed," Cookie nods sagely, like he knows all about it. If he does it was before Michelle. He's way too scared of losing her to actually stray.

"So, you feeling better Crosby? Wanna try out the skates today?" Dan asks, walking into the room with his skates already on and his whistle around his neck. I hadn't actually planned on it but the idea suddenly seems like a good one. I have some frustrations to work out and a few laps around the rink and a couple of shooting drills suddenly seem like a very good idea indeed.

"Yeah," I smile, heading for my spot on the bench, "I think I'm turning a corner."

* * *

><p>I sit astride my bike in front of a small storefront that is, as it always is when I come here, jammed with early morning commuters in their monochrome business suits clutching their morning brews and still rubbing the sleep from their eyes looking to get their daily sugar fix. I'm keeping a count the number of Starbucks cups versus the number of adult sippy-cups I see, making a mental note for later. This place is already a goldmine, but with one of those big old gaudy gold espresso machines installed it would have a license to print money.<p>

This place has always been here. It was here when its clientele were mostly men in overalls with tin buckets for lunch pails. The city has sort of grown up around it but this place, well…it hasn't changed at all.

Pulling off my helmet and leaving it hanging on the handlebar, I head for the line snaking out the front door and right past it into the sauna like heat filling the little bakery full of the smell of freshly baked bread and warm cinnamon.

"Is Franco around?" I ask the girl behind the register who doesn't even look up from her punching the keys at supersonic speed.

"In za back," she says in the same thick accent that every member of staff in this place has, beaming a smile at the customer in front of her and tilting her head towards the swinging doors to the kitchen.

"Thanks." I lift the small wooden countertop that also serves as a gate and walk through, behind the display cases full icing topped goodies and rows of cookies of every imaginable shape and size and through the doors to the place the magic happens; the sorcerer's layer.

"Violetta." I feel a real smile break out on my face for the first time in, well, ever as I watch his big gnarled hands digging into a ball of dough.

"Does everyone around here have e.s.p. or something?" I chuckle as I sidestep a young man in his baker's whites shouldering a tray of still steaming cinnamon buns that smell pretty much exactly like my idea of heaven.

"Who else wears such clunky boots?" he grins, glancing up from the dough to wink at me. "Iz good to see you."'

"It's good to see you too Mr. Beneducci," I smile, breathing in the scent of warm yeast and melted butter. It smells like home. "I think I'm ready."

"Si?" His hands stop moving and he straightens to his full height and then crosses his sizeable arms over his even more sizeable chest. Years of kneading bread dough for hours will do that for you. "Something has changed?"

"I've been thinking about it." I don't tell him that I've been doing most of the thinking on the back of my bobber over the last couple of days while spending most of my last paycheck on gas and truck stop coffee just riding around aimlessly, doing pretty much nothing _but_ thinking. "I've also had some uh…friends telling me that it's a good idea so…yeah, I think I'm ready."

"Buono," he smiles and moves around the table a lot quicker than you'd think a man his age would be able to and I find myself wrapped in his arms with my feet off of the ground. "Your father would be a-so proud," he tells me while pressing his lips to both of my cheeks. "And my old lady she's a-been bugging me to go on one of these cruises. She will be a-so happy I take some time off."

"Yeah, about that," I smile as he puts me down on my own two feet, "I want to do this properly with a contract and everything." He looks down at me eyes wide and his busy steel grey eyebrows high into his forehead. "I know…I know I don't have to and that you said you'd let me pay in installments but I want to put it on paper, properly."

"You know we've always thought of you as one of our own," he says quietly, his big flour covered hand cupping my cheek. I lean into it, into the size and warmth of it and nod. A girl was never so lucky as to have apprenticed for Rosa and Franco Beneducci. From the first day I walked into this kitchen they always made me feel like I was their daughter. Maybe because they have sons and their sons are douchebags who've spent more time in the Pen than at home, but still….

"I want to do it right," I tell him quietly, looking up into his soft dark eyes. "I think that it's time I grew up and stopped running."

* * *

><p>"Anything?" I stare into the light and for once I can answer that question honestly and it makes me smile.<p>

"Nope, not a thing," I grin as he turns off the pen light and goes back to making notations.

"Any uneasiness, dizziness, nausea?" I shake my head again, swinging my feet and drumming my heels on the edge of the table, just because. He nods and taps his pen against the sheet. "Well…I don't see why you can't try this again tomorrow." I want to hug him. I want to jump up and down and clap unreservedly like a little kid would but I manage to restrain myself, just about.

"And then I can be cleared for contact?" I ask, maybe a little too eagerly but honestly I don't think anyone who knows me is surprised at how much I want to get back out there.

"What did I tell you at the beginning of this?" the doctor says patiently and I roll my eyes.

"One step at a time," I mumble, the air having been let out of my balloon.

"But," he adds with just the hint of a smile, "if things keep progressing in this fashion, I don't see why that wouldn't be something we could talk about in a week or so." Now I really want to hug the guy but he accepts a handshake instead before I explode out of the room and run down the hall like it's the last day of school or something. I don't stop until I skid around the corner into the dressing room.

"I can practice again tomorrow!" I beam to a mostly empty room, most of the guys already having gone home to their wives, girlfriends and families.

"Whaddaya want a jelly bean or something?" Gronk asks, snorting as he walks by me, shaking his head and grinning at his own version of a joke.

"That's good," Dupers smiles and gives me a pat on the shoulder. "Max was starting to think he's the new captain," my road roomie adds with a smirk and a sideways glance at Max who, from what I've seen has been elevating his game and trying to lead like I would, by example.

I'm about to tell him so when I hear the beginning notes of Born to be Wild coming from my pocket. It's the message tone I've set for her. Part of my brain tells me to ignore it, not to react to it, that things are going well right this second and the last thing I need right now is more drama from her but my phone is already in my hand.

"Es que votre folle?" Max asks as my fingers move to begin to reply to her request before I've even had a chance to think it through.

"She wants to talk," I mumble, sending a reply that asks '_when__&__where_?' My brain is telling me that I should be wary but my heart is already hammering in my chest and I know it's no longer just about practice tomorrow.

* * *

><p>There's a bounce in my step when I turn the corner to head into the ICU that hasn't been there in a long time. I have a box of gooey cinnamon buns in my hand and a plan in my head and I'm looking forward to the expression in Kev's eyes when I tell him about it. I'm even looking forward to asking Crosby if he'll still help out, at least with the cost of the renovations and the espresso machine. I actually have to remind myself not to whistle as I walk through the doors even though it feels like a two ton weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.<p>

"Hey ladies, I come bearing goodies." My voice falls as I realize which room they're all crowded in front of, where all of the alarms are ringing. "No," I shake my head, momentarily rooted to the spot with the sweating box of sugar and icing held in front of me like a shield. "No…no," I repeat, mostly under my breath, blinking back tears of gut churning fear.

"You knew this could happen." A nurse whispers, appearing at my side, her cool fingers wrapping around my arm. I shrug her grip off, pushing the box into her hands, my feet suddenly released from the cement they'd momentarily been stuck in. I shove and push my way past a wall of nurses in time to see one of the doctors in his long white coat turning off the heart monitor.

"No," I gasp, feeling like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of my lungs all at once. "Turn it back on, don't just stand there doing nothing!" I insist as I reach to put one of the sensors the doctor has just pulled off back on his chest.

"You know there's a DNR," the doctor says tactfully, reaching over my arm to gently shut Kevin's now vacant and glassy blue eyes.

"But he can't…not yet," I sob, hammering his chest uselessly with my bare hands. "Fuck the DNR, fucking do something!" I scream, the desperate sound tearing at my throat like a thousand shards of glass.

"He's gone," one of the nurses tells me, trying to peel me away from his bedside but I won't go. I can't.

"No!" I scream, slamming my hands flat against his unresponsive chest. "No, he can't be gone. He can't!" Tears are streaming down my face and there's a part of me that knows they're right but the rest of me can't let go. Not yet because he can't be gone. I have things to tell him. I need his opinion on things and more than that I'm not ready yet. Not yet. "Don't go!" I sob, slamming a fist down on the middle of his chest making his body jump. "It's not fair. You can't leave me yet!"

"There's nothing you can do. He wouldn't want this. Come away." A strong pair of arms wrap around my middle and lift me off of my feet, and despite kicking and clawing, I find myself being physically removed from his bedside and carried all the way out of the ICU


	18. Chapter 18

_This took a little longer than I'd thought it would to write. I started and stopped, deleted and began again a few times. I changed my mind, made up my mind and reworked it about three times and then I deleted it all and redid this morning and I think it feels right. Let me know what you think. _**  
><strong>

**Chapter 18**

"My bike," she says weakly, hicupping as she wipes at her eyes for the umpteenth time.

"It's okay. Kris is bringing it here," I whisper, gently guiding her head back down to my chest, where my t-shirt is almost soaked through with her tears. She sniffs a couple of more times and then struggles to get upright again.

"No not..," her grey blue eyes meet mine and I just shrug.

"I know it's not ideal but there's just not that many guys on the team who can ride, not including me," I admit, reaching up to trace the path of a tear down her cheek. That, unlike everything else I've tried in the past couple of hours, seems to get through and she smiles weakly. "Go head, call me a pussy, I know you want to. C'mon, maybe it will make you feel a little better." I'm rewarded by the tiniest hint of a smile as she shakes her head. "Alright," I shrug, "but you only get so many freebies." She nods and sniffs and then turns her back to me.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks in a voice that reveals how exhausted she is after hours of sobbing like her heart's been torn out.

"Well I think I already gave you the answer to that and you didn't like it so I'm not gonna repeat it," I tell her sincerely and earn another bemused smile.

"No really, I've been such a fucking bitch to you. Why are you being nice to me?" she sighs, running her hands through her hair and hanging her head between her knees.

"Uh, again, the answer to that kinda falls into the same category," I reply, reaching out to caress the hand she puts down on the bed and I'm sort of surprised when she lets me. "Besides," I add, inching closer to her, "you called me, remember?"

"Texted," she corrects me and I can almost hear a smile in her voice as I wrap my arms around her. She leans back against me and I can feel her relaxing by degrees. "Jesus…did today really happen?" she mumbles as we ease back down onto her bed and she gives in to the demands of her body and starts, at last, to relax.

"So I'm assuming that _wasn__'__t_ what you wanted me there for?" I ask the question as delicately as I can but even so I can feel her stiffen in my arms.

"Of course not," she bristles and then I literally feel her take a deep breath and relax. "But uh…I'm glad you were there," she adds, very quietly.

"Hey, that's what friends are for," I remind her, giving her a gentle squeeze. For a long time, minutes, maybe half an hour, we lie there in silence and eventually I close my eyes, thinking she's finally given in and fallen sleep but then she stirs in my arms, rolls over and her gaze locks with mine.

"Are you okay with that?" she asks very suddenly and bluntly, her eyes looking as lavender as I remember seeing them the first night we met. I get a tightening in my gut and I want, more than anything, to deny that I understand what she's asking but I grow a sack and nod.

"Yeah, for now," I tell her, ignoring the way that my heart feels like it's being squeezed in a vice.

"Because I can't…I don't have anything to give and I don't know when I will," she whispers, her gaze searching mine. I want to say that it's okay but the words won't come out. They sort of sit there on my tongue and refuse to leave. "And that's not good enough for you," she sighs, dropping her gaze from mine.

"No, no, I don't expect that. I mean right now, with what just happened and…." Her gaze flicks back up to meet mine and she's wearing this haunted smile that makes it hard to breathe.

"Oh c'mon Crosby, we both know that I'm not the girl for you," she smiles, reaching up to run her thumb along my bottom lip and this time she doesn't want me to playfully bite it or suck it into my mouth. This time it's just a touch to quiet me when all I want to do is stop her from saying what I know she's about to say. "I love you for being here right now and I know that you have my back and that means…well it means a hell of a lot more than I thought it would and I'm telling you right now if some guy puts your head through glass again I want you to know that I'm puttin' on a pair of fuckin' skates and I'll throw down with fucking Ovie if I have to," she grins suddenly and my heart swells in my chest but as soon as I feel like she's not about to crush it in her hand her smile fades. "But I know that what I am and what I really want to do with my life doesn't fit into your world. No Crosby," she smirks and presses her lips briefly over mine before continuing. "I've been trying to make it work in my head because if I'm really honest, the thought of not seeing you…kinda sucks," she admits and rolls her eyes when I can't help but give a little smile of triumph.

"I'm not gonna push you now but if we give it some time…," I begin, only to have her shake her head.

"I've seen what V goes through to be there for MAF and how much time it takes just to be at all those events and all those games and even though I assumed…I thought…." She chokes back a sob and turns her face away from me as she wipes furiously at her eyes with the backs of her hands before continuing. "I thought I'd still have Kev…would still be seeing him every day. But even without that…running a business is going to take up a huge amount of time and that's where I'm going to want to be."

"In the kitchen," I sigh, feeling like I've just watched a goal trickle into the back of my own net in overtime and then it's my turn to turn away from her. I know I've already laid all my cards on the table as far as she's concerned but somehow I still don't want her to see that it hurts me that she won't choose me.

"That's where I know who I am," she tells me quietly and I feel her stroke my face but I keep it turned from her all the same.

"_I_ know who you are," I reply bitterly.

"Yeah, I guess you do," she smirks and lays down on her back so that she can look up at me, her fingertips continuing to brush my cheek. "He wanted me to be with you y'know," she adds softly and I'm sure that statement is intended to make me feel better but it just feels like she's twisting the knife in my guts instead. "Just so you know," she adds a little more firmly, her fingers digging into my chin, forcing me to look down at her, "I liked you before he told me that. I just didn't want to admit it." If that's supposed to make me feel better she's failing miserably.

"Liked, great," I grunt, forcing the detestable word through my teeth, still refusing to meet her gaze.

"Jesus you not that insecure Crosby…you're so not gonna make me say it," she sighs dramatically like now she's the one trying to lighten the mood.

"So, as usual, it's all about you," I grumble, turning my head so that her hand is no longer on my cheek.

"Christ Crosby I _am_ trying to be fair to you," she growls back at me and then tries to roll away, except I won't let her. I can't.

* * *

><p>Sometimes, especially when you're little, you have magical thinking; like when you think if you shut your eyes tight enough you can make something bad go away or something that you want with all of your heart appear. When Sidney grabs me and pulls me under him his eyes are squeezed shut so hard that I I know that he's wishing that I could be the woman he wants me to be.<p>

I've never believed in all that wishing on a star bullshit. Maybe it's because I can't tell the difference between a star, a planet and a satellite. Mostly it's because I like to think that I'm a pragmatist and a realist. Like right now, I know that the man trying to kiss a toad into a princess is way out of my league. I could, if I were even more twisted than I am, believe that this moment is some kind of cosmic get even moment for all of the girls who would kill to have this man and never will but the pragmatist in me says that what's going on here is nothing that epic. What I believe, the conclusion that I came to in all of those hours riding around with nothing but the thoughts in my head and the sound of the engine between my thighs is that we found one another because each of us needed someone in our moment of darkness, someone who would not take no for an answer and would do whatever it took to drag the other through the darkness. But that moment is over now and it's time to step into the light.

Or at least it is for him. I don't think I'm quite there yet but I know that the last few steps are ones that I have to take on my own. I know he knows it too when I feel the warm splash of his tears on my face as he holds onto me as if I'm a life raft, like if he lets go he'll drown. He won't. He'll be just fine and not just because he's Sidney Crosby but because there's a kind of light inside of him that makes him glow kind of like a night light. He's nowhere near the badass he thinks that he wants to be.

"I hate you," he hisses as he shoves his hand down the front of my jeans and makes me gasp for breath.

"No you don't," I wheeze before I press my lips up against his again while I claw at his shirt, dragging it up to his massive shoulders at which point he helps me pull it off and then tosses it onto the floor before pressing me back down onto the bed.

For him this is keeping the moment of truth at bay, the time when he'll have to leave and go back to his real life. For me this is a sort of reminder that I'm still alive, that with Kev gone I can still breathe, that my heart still beats and that my life is going to go on. I remember very clearly not being sure if I wanted that, if I still wanted to be able to breathe or if it would just be easier to walk out in front of a bus and have it all be over. Feeling that rush of adrenaline, that full body shudder when he brings me, screaming and scratching up his back, reminds me that I can still feel, that I can still…_be_.

"I fucking hate you," he snarls as he drags my jeans off and reaches for the snap on his own. I smile up at him, thinking that the right response to someone so clearly in distress as he is now shouldn't be to want to fuck him except that I know that's what he needs. He needs to claim me. He needs to shove his flag pole in me to prove to himself that he isn't really as weak as he's feeling now and I need to let him, for once, have the upper hand.

"That's okay," I whisper as he roughly shoves his jeans down over his hips and positions himself between my thighs, prying them apart with his big, meaty hands. "I love you," I tell him, letting him see the truth of it, just this once, in my eyes.

"Bitch," he snarls, slamming his hips forward and filling me all at once. I gasp, the air driven from my lungs, but I smile too. It feels good. It always feels good with him and I don't hide it this time, don't dissemble or evade. I let him see my appreciation for his beauty, for his masculinity, for his dominance over me. Mostly I let him see, this one time, how I feel.

"I love you," I repeat, reaching for him, lacing my fingers in his big, thick ones. He looks at our joined hands, at the way they fit together and his face twists into something that doesn't look like him at all. It's animalistic and raw and ugly as his nostrils flare and his eyes narrow and those full, soft lips almost disappear entirely as tears spill down his pale cheeks.

"I. _Hate_. You!" he growls and then falls on me, pressing my arms over my head and takes me like I'm nothing more than a blow up doll, like this is all about him and not about me at all but as he slams into me, as he rams himself deep inside of me with nearly all of his weight pressing me down into the bed I feel myself coming apart, cracking and shattering like broken glass. I feel like I'm an egg that he's breaking and as I scream his name it's with another voice that comes from another woman, a new woman entirely.

* * *

><p>There's only a note on the pillow next to me when I wake up. Somehow I knew that would happen. I don't even have to read it to know what it says. This place, her apartment, doesn't even feel like hers as the morning light creeps across the floor. It feels cold and empty. Even that ripe green apple smell of hers is gone somehow. She's gone and I know that the note I'm reaching for is going to tell me that she won't be coming back either.<p>

I expect it to hurt but as I swing my legs over the side of the bed and reach for my underwear I'm surprised to find that my chest doesn't ache as much as it did last night. I even find myself smiling, just a little, as I tug on my jeans and look up at that pin up picture of her that isn't her. Not the Violet I knew. The Violet I knew was never that playful, not really. She's someone else's Violet and I realize, as I take the picture down off the wall that she probably will be that Violet for someone else, sometime later, when she's ready.

I know I'll miss her and that the picture will always be a bittersweet reminder but I take it anyway because I don't want to forget her and I could. Hockey's taught me how to wipe moments, games, even entire days from my mind and I could do that with her memory because I know that thinking about her will always sort of hurt, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that little pain will remind me to keep my head up.

"I love you," I whisper to the ghost in the room, to the empty space on the counter where her cake decorating tools should be that tells me she isn't going back to the restaurant either. I wonder if the note will tell me but I don't read it. Not yet, maybe later. "Bye Vi," I whisper as I pull the door shut behind me and head down to the street where I'm pleasantly surprised to find my SUV in one piece.

I slide the picture onto the passenger seat before I get behind the wheel and am tempted to read the note while I let it warm up but the sun is just coming over the tops of the buildings and the wet streets are glittering and suddenly there's a rainbow in the sky and I just stare at it and smile.

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

"I'm telling you this place has the best scones in the city and I'm starving because someone didn't feed me last night."

I let myself be lead through a door that jingles welcomingly as it opens and suddenly the nip in the air is gone and I suddenly feel as if I've been wrapped up in a favorite old quilt next to a roaring fire. The small bakery is as hot as a sauna, its windows steamed up and everyone inside has rosy cheeks and big smiles that are as warm as the temperature.

"Oooh look, pastaciottis, oh and sfogliatelle!" I chuckle as I watch Mel lick her full lips as her big dark eyes roam over the display cases full of pastries and colorful cakes and cookies.

"Get whatever you want babe, but hurry up or you'll be late for your own hen party," I remind her with a glance at my watch. The flight to Atlantic City isn't for another couple of hours but she doesn't know that, it's just one of the many surprises planned for her this weekend.

"But there's _sooo_ many choices," she whines, biting down on her bottom lip in that adorable way that always makes me want to grab her and kiss her. I slide my arms around her waist and pull her back against me, kissing the curve of her neck while she giggles. That giggle, it's sucked me in since the day we met two years ago.

"Then get one of everything," I whisper, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before she digs her elbows into me and struggles free.

"Yeah, cuz then I'd need a tent for a wedding dress," she says, heaving a sigh. "I guess just one sfogliatelle…and maybe a blueberry scone," she adds with a flash of that infectious grin of hers'.

"Can I suggest the orange poppy seed ones? It's a new recipe but they're really yummy." You'd think something like the sound of a person's voice you'd forget over time, but the minute that I hear it all these emotions come swimming to the surface and even though I'm surrounded with the smell of freshly baked bread and ground espresso suddenly all I can smell is leather and green apples and I'm not at all surprised when I turn around to find myself staring into a pair of lavender eyes. "Hey you," she smiles as if I'd only seen her yesterday, not three years ago.

"Violet." It feels like I'm whispering a prayer when I say her name and her smile broadens, her eyes light up and all of a sudden she looks like the girl in the picture back home in the study.

"Can I get you a mocha or a latté?" she asks Mel, knowing, I guess, that I won't have one. I watch her light eyes give my fiancée a quick inspection and just for a minute I worry that the Violet I used to know will say something crass but her warm smile doesn't even fade at the edges.

"Mmm a peanut butter mocha with lots of whip cream and Reese's pieces," Mel replies moving towards the big brass and gold plated machine behind the counter. Violet gives some younger woman quick instructions and then starts boxing up the goodies Mel ordered. I watch her lovingly putting the pastries in the box and can't help but notice that there's no ring on her hand and just a little part of me feels bad about that.

"I hope you're paying," she winks at me and moves towards an old fashioned looking metal cash register. I get out my wallet and realize my hands are shaking. "She's a cutie patootie," Violet says without looking up from punching in our order. "You make a cute couple," she adds, glancing up at me with those eyes that make my heart miss a beat. I don't know what to say to that so I just hand her a twenty which she makes a meal out of holding up to the light and turning over in her hand as if it might be counterfeit. My gaze goes to the tattoos on her arm and as she goes to slide the twenty into the cash drawer I catch sight of a small but unmistakable addition on the inside of her wrist that looks a lot like the number on the back of my jersey. I open my mouth to ask her about it when the doors to what I can only guess by a glimpse of gleaming machinery and long flour covered tables is the kitchen swing suddenly open.

"Mama!"

"Boo, you know you're not supposed to be out here." The grin she's suddenly wearing makes her entire face light up as she bends down to pick up a small boy whose dark hair she ruffles as she presses a kiss to his temple as she settles him on her hip as if it's something second nature.

"But I'm hungry," he pouts, his very full, very pink bottom lip juts out.

"You're always hungry, you little monster," she teases, poking his little belly and making him squirm. "It's going to be lunch time soon. You can wait a little longer."

"Can't I have just one cookie?" he asks and turns to look at the rows and rows of them in the display case. His light colored eyes are surrounded by long, thick dark lashes.

"_One_," she says sternly, "and not any of the biscotti, do you hear me Patrick?" she adds as she puts him down. She watches him go and I listen to the sound of his little feet as he runs around behind the display case. His little face reappears as he reaches for a chocolate dipped macaroon and there's something about the look of concentration on his face as he carefully puts his hand around it that seems so familiar….

"He's adorable," Mel says admiringly as she reappears at my side with a steaming cup of something sweet smelling.

"He's a handful," Violet replies with a smirk as she watches him walk back to her. She picks him up and puts him on the counter. "Now…change…it was a twenty right?" she mumbles as she goes back to the cash register.

"Forget it," I mumble, my gaze still riveted to the little boy with the wavy dark hair.

"Sidney," Mel elbows me. "Don't be such a show off."

"Yeah Sidney," Violet drawls holding out my change, "listen to the lady. It sounds like you're keeping him in line," she adds with a wink towards Mel who blushes and gleams like a new penny all at once.

"I do my best," Mel grins, slipping her arm into mine. "C'mon, or we'll be late, like you said," she adds, bumping her hip against mine. I don't want to go but I find myself staggering towards the door, my gaze still on the boy on the counter and his mother who seems to be whispering something to him that makes him turn and watch us go. They both wave and I do too and then the door closes with a jingle behind us.


End file.
